Coach Post Match – Todd Curley Round 14

WHAT South Fremantle coach Todd Curley had to say after Sunday's 110-point win over Perth after being 29 points down late in the first quarter leading into the bye this week and the annual NAIDOC Round clash with Claremont at Claremont Oval.

QUESTION: If I told you when 29 points down in the first quarter that you'd be able to win by 110 points you would have been pretty happy?
ANSWER: Yeah the response was pretty impressive, but we'd prefer to not have a slow start like that and have to come back in the first place. But even at that point, we were confident that if we could just steady and get things back on our terms that we could turn it around. It was pleasing we were able to do that and the last three quarters were pretty good to watch. Our ball movement was good, our pressure was good and it was nice that we were really able to take advantage in the forward-line and put the score on the board. We were poor in the first quarter, though, so we will have to review that and see why.

Q: Obviously the response was great so do you gloss over that start as a result or do you try and figure out what went wrong?
A: We'll definitely have a look at it. We don't want to be in that position early in games and you're not always going to be able to turn it around like we did this time. So we'll spend some time going through that to see what caused it. We hadn't trained since Thursday so maybe that extra day before playing on Sunday was a factor, I'm not sure but we'll definitely be reviewing it to try and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Q: It really had the potential to be a horrible day when not only did you go down early, but lost Ben Saunders?
A: Yeah it did. The scoreboard obviously was getting a little out of control and losing your full-forward like that is never nice. But Ben looks like he'll be fine. He just copped a knock but he's up and about now, and given we've got the bye coming up he'll be fine to play and won't have to miss any games because of it.

Q: Without Saunders, to end up kicking 25 goals with Blaine Johnson, Cory Dell'Olio and Mason Shaw stepping up was impressive?
A: Yeah obviously it was good to see other guys stand up once Ben got knocked out, but we've always wanted to make sure we have plenty of options to goal. Cory and Blaine were great, but it was especially good to see Mase take some marks again and find some form. Then Schloithey kicked a few late when we pushed him forward, but really they benefited from the work up the ground and we got on top across half-back and through the middle and that gave us all those chances. When you have that much control of the game and those entries inside-50 that we did in the last three quarters, you'd like to think you can kick a big score.

Q: What's your reaction to Blaine and Cory kicking 15 goals between them?
A: It's obviously a really good effort and both guys are in great form. Blaine is a special player and is one of those guys that you don’t find too often who can do it all. He's good in the air and on the ground and we're happy to have him in such good form. And Dell is really getting back to some of his best form too which is pleasing, but they could only do that because of the ball coming into the forward-line like it was so those guys up the ground deserve a lot of the credit.

Q: Mason has had a quietist month or so two, good to see him take strong marks and kick goals?
A: He just needed to get some confidence back with his marking and we knew the rest would come for him. He took some really strong contested marks and went back to kick the goals. We always knew it wouldn’t take much for him to get back to his best and that was a pleasing performance.

Q: You had so many players doing well further up the ground too, including Hockey, Brendan Verrier, Main, Edwards, Schloithe and Bewick?
A: A lot of guys really stepped up after quarter-time. I thought our pressure through the middle and around the ball was great, and when called on our back-line was solid. Then the run we got off half back from guys like Marlion and Steve Edwards was good, and we had a lot of guys standing up in the middle. It was good for us to do well with Tim Kelly tagged pretty closely too. So other guys had to step up and Hocks, Skinny and guys like that played well.

Q: Shane Hockey was probably back to the best form we saw from him last year winning the fairest and best award?
A: Yeah I'd probably agree with that. His season hasn’t been as smooth as it was last year for a couple of reasons, but his game was really strong. Especially after half-time he really got going and was in there winning the hard footy, and was able to get out and spread too to find some space. That's the sort of footy we grew to expect from him last year and hopefully he keeps it going the rest of this year now.

Q: Plan now for the bye, do you keep things pretty similar?
A: We won't change too much, we've been pretty good coming off the byes the last couple of years. The boys will go to the beach on Monday to do recovery, then they'll go out to some junior clubs on Tuesday to some visits and we'll have a pretty solid session on Thursday. They will have the weekend free but after a Sunday game it's not quite a two-week break, so then we'll get back into it and get ready for Claremont.
 
Q: Thoughts on taking on Claremont now after the bye?
A: It's another big game, but really they all are with the competition so even. They are a good team and have been winning some games again lately so we know we'll have to be better again than we were this week if we want to beat them.

Q: Is playing at Claremont Oval any different, they will still be unbeaten there and a lot of your guys have not played there either for four years, or ever?
A: Claremont have played at home three times so that's three times more than us, but it's probably not a huge advantage given it's been three and-a-half years since they have played there. A ground is a ground so it doesn’t really have much impact, but it will be new to all of us getting there and working out where to park, and where to go in the building and looking at the coaches' box and things like that. But that has no impact on the game itself.