Coach Post Match – Todd Curley Round 8

WHAT South Fremantle coach Todd Curley had to say following the Round 8 WAFL loss to Claremont at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

South Fremantle's five-game winning streak came to an end with the six-point defeat at the hands of the Tigers with the Bulldogs now preparing to host the WA Day Foundation Derby against East Fremantle at Fremantle Community Bank Oval this Monday.

QUESTION: You gave yourselves a chance to win the game at the end obviously, but it just felt like you never quite got going?
ANSWER: Full credit to them, they made it hard for us to play but you can't play 30 minutes of footy and expect to win. We had a bit of a patch in the second quarter and towards the end, but to be honest there was too much left to too few. We had too many guys who flashed in and out, and didn’t contribute for long enough.

Q: You would have been disappointed with the start, but you played well in the last part of the second quarter so at half-time you would have been thinking you could carry that on?
A: I thought we fought our way back in the second half of the second quarter, but to that point we had been clearly outworked by a more desperate team. Then unfortunately for the most part of the second half it was the same.

Q: Despite feeling like you didn't play great for the most part, is it a good sign in some ways that you still had a chance to snatch the win?
A: I don’t think we ever stopped trying, but we probably ended up getting pulled apart and everyone was trying hard but not getting much system. We have to be much better. We were well below par and you can't play well for only such a small part of the game and expect to win. It wouldn’t have been much justice I don’t think if we did get over the line.

Q: It was a really important game for them and they were well coached by Darren Harris, did he do something that held you up or were you just a bit down for whatever reason?
A: We certainly had no reason to be tired so I don’t think it was that, but we certainly looked flat early. I thought it was just work rate to be honest. Their work rate to get that second phase run was clearly an area they were on top in and every time they went forward they scored. We know we have some guys out, but there are areas we have to be better at and that is the same for whoever comes into the team. And to this point, we've been pretty good with that.

Q: Shane Hockey has probably been your best player over the first six games, it was a big loss with him out of the game early?
A: It was really early too. That was a challenge and then we had a couple of other sore boys. But they would have too and there's no excuses. You have to find a way, but he is pretty important to us and hopefully he's OK. The only message we got was that he was done for the day, but we have nine days and his availability or not will play itself out.

Q: You needed other guys to step up and Brock Higgins and Marlion Pickett couldn’t have possibly done more?
A: Marlion was super and he gets a pretty rough ride I think. He doesn’t get looked after too much and because he's so hard at the ball he seems to get penalised quite a bit too. But he was fantastic. Brock battled on too but it was pretty hard to find lots of guys who were in it for a full four quarters. We had lots who came in and out unfortunately.

Q: Over the last five wins, the best part has been how everyone was contributing but this week you probably had half the team down on their usual output?
A: Any good team needs to have the majority of the team weigh in and unfortunately we had too few this week. It doesn’t mater who you are playing against, if it's the top team, a team who has struggled or whoever, if they get more contributors it's going to make it hard. We have to get better.

Q: It's a proud group and you haven’t lost many games over the last two and-a-half years and they have a habit of bouncing back strongly from losses?
A: First of all, we'll recover and then there's some stuff we need to look at and work on getting better at. They are a good, honest group and work really hard so there's nothing I've seen from them in the past to suggest they aren’t going to come back pretty strongly.

Q: The derby now next Monday and East Fremantle's coming off a win and will be determined to perform better than the first time you met this season?
A: Absolutely, but we can't do much about them. We can only fix us and there are some things to fix. The twos had a pretty good win so we'll have a look at that and pick the team for next week that we think will give us the best chance to beat East Fremantle.