Curley proud of Bulldogs' start to 2019

SOUTH Fremantle coach Todd Curley couldn’t be prouder of the Bulldogs' fighting qualities to overcome three significant injuries to win the WA Day Foundation Derby and continue a tremendous start to the season heading into a testing period.

There were a few questions surrounding South Fremantle coming into the 2019 season following the departures of Ashton Hams, Cory Dell'Olio, Ryan Cook, Ben Saunders, Shane Hockey, Jarrod Parry and Matthew Parker following reaching three preliminary finals in-a-row.

South Fremantle then had a bit of a slow start to the season despite a Round 1 win over Swan Districts before losing at home the next week in another nail-biter against Perth.

Now since then, the Bulldogs have put together six tremendous performances to be on a six-game winning run following the derby win over East Fremantle.

Along the way, that included South Fremantle handing Subiaco its first loss since the 2017 Grand Final and the impressive 7-1 start has happened with the Bulldogs still facing plenty of challenges along the way.

Marlion Pickett played just one game before reinjuring a finger that saw him miss the first five games and now he's at Richmond so his season never got started. 

Adam McIntosh got hurt early in Round 3 as well and hasn’t played since while Josh Collard, Caleb Datson, Chris Ah Siu and Regan Spooner have spent time sidelined.

Then there is Zac Dent, Jake Florenca, Chad Pearson, Andrew Haydon, Kade Stewart, Noah Strom and Kyle Russell among the players who came into the season with under 30 games of WAFL experience who have taken their increased opportunities with both hands.

Following the win over East Fremantle that came despite losing Haiden Schloithe, Jake Florenca and Shaun Bewick to injury along the way on the afternoon, South Fremantle went into a bye on a six-game winning run with a 7-1 record.

While Curley is happy with how the Bulldogs are travelling, he knows upcoming games against Peel Thunder, Subiaco, West Coast Eagles, Claremont and Perth leading into a Round 15 bye are going to be season-defining.

"Coming into the season you are hopeful of things going your way and there's been a couple of games where we've been a bit lucky towards the end, and in the one we lost we were probably a bit unlucky at the end," Curley said. 

"I think it's a pretty fair and accurate reflection of where we're at right now, but we have a really tough block of five games after the bye and that will probably give us a really good indication of where we're at."

Given the challenges with injury and the amount of youth in the team, Curley is deservedly happy with the way South Fremantle is travelling at this point of the season. 

While going 7-1 with plenty of positives is a nice position to be in, but he knows that while they are well positioned, they aren’t guaranteed anything still going forward.

"I'm really pleased with how we've started. It's a big commitment from the players to play WAFL footy," he said.

"Their pre-season is almost longer than the season these days and while we were really confident that we had the young blokes within our group that could step up, you're never really sure how quickly that can come along. 

"But to this point, they've been fantastic and we've played a lot of guys that had played less than 10 games for a lot of the season. They just come in and have been able to play our role and our senior players have been fantastic. 

"It's much easier to look at the second half of the year with wins in the bank as you look ahead and it's starting to get wet and cold. As the competition tightens up, those wins are invaluable so to have seven already in the bank is certainly a huge advantage."

As for the win over East Fremantle on WA Day, it was an impressive effort from South Fremantle to run away with the game with the only five goals of the last quarter to win by 32 points with just one man available on the bench.

Curley couldn’t have been prouder of his team's performance in challenging circumstances.

"We were challenged a lot with injuries and to lose Florenca, Schloithe and Bewick during the game, they are three starting midfielders out of the game so it was going to be a big challenge from there," he said.

"We weren’t great early and gave away some goals through double 50m penalties and East Freo really came out to play.

"I thought they were pretty good in the first quarter, but after quarter-time I thought our boys were pretty good and kicked 14 goals to six, and were able to have a pretty strong win in the end in pretty trying circumstances."

As for those injuries suffered on WA Day, there were good news with Schloithe's knee with him a chance to play after the bye against Peel Thunder while Florenca should be good to go and the Bulldogs have to take a wait and see approach on the recovery of Bewick's ankle.

"He had a scan after the game and we got the news back the next day and it appears that he dodged a bullet, and there's no serious damage to his knee," Curley said.

"Obviously there's a bit inflammation there and he strained the capsule of his knee, but in terms of ligament and cartilage, it's all intact.

"We're hopeful that if he's not available after the bye, then it will only be a week or two after that so it's great news. 

"Bewy had a pretty sore ankle and he was keen to try to stay on the ground to help the boys out, but he was only going to do more damage but hopefully it's not too bad. And Jake Florenca had a bit of slight concussion but with the week off he should be fine."