COACH POST MATCH - TODD CURLEY ROUND 4

SOUTH Fremantle coach Todd Curley speaking after the Round 4 WAFL victory against Subiaco at Leederville Oval by 50 points that improves the Bulldogs to a perfect 4-0 record in 2020 looking ahead to returning home this Saturday to play the winless Swan Districts.

QUESTION: It was a shaky first five minutes but then you worked your way on top and ended up dominating the second half, you would have come away pretty happy?
ANSWER: It was a disappointing first five or six minutes when I they maybe kicked three goals to nothing so that was a fair start to give them. But I thought even in the second half of the first quarter our boys started to fight back a bit. Again I thought it was an even performance. We had some good players but most blokes weighed in and did their job especially after we were sort of two down early in the second half.

Q: You haven’t been able to break a game open the last two weeks, what changed this week where you could kick 12 goals to three after half-time?
A: The last couple of weeks have been real scraps with lots of numbers around the ball and especially the West Perth game it was really gusty so it was hard to move the ball. But today I thought we took our chances and kicked straight, which is obviously important, but we probably got our chances in better spots too. It was a pretty even performance with no one goalkicker and the midfielders shared, and the backs were pretty even and the forwards shared the load as well.

Q: How big of a second half was it from Zac Strom, Jimmy Miller and your midfielders to make sure you covered for the loss of Brock Higgins?
A: Our midfield are pretty experienced and we probably think we go pretty deep with a fair few who can go through there. We've worked pretty hard the past two or three years especially of getting guys who can play multiple positions so that if things don't work, we can change and it doesn’t totally disrupt them and they can still impact. There was a fair bit of shuffling around today obviously after Higgo went off and then Denty got hurt as well. We are pretty lucky that Zac Strom can sort of play anywhere and Jimmy has been a really good pick up for us in terms of his ability to go into the ruck to help us, and go forward to help Mase out as well. I thought that after the first 10 or 12 minutes, we were pretty consistent.

Q: Talking about Zac Strom, he literally can play any position on the ground and he was even on the wing in the first half and won a lot of the ball. Then he went into the ruck and was tremendous, he might just about be in career-best form?
A: There's no doubt that Jimmy coming in and being able to play a role along with Mase forward has freed up Zac a bit. It's pretty hard to play as a key forward and second ruck all of the time, but Zac has played forward, he's played wing, he's played ruck and he can play everywhere. He is in good form at the moment and when you're like that, you have to keep the ball rolling as long as you can. He has had some really good patches of play every year to be honest and that's because he does everything right. He trains really hard, is selfless and does whatever role we ask of him, and his teammates love him like we all do. He has been a really strong contributor but we've had some pretty consistent boys that have been able to stand up along with him, and some boys who have missed footy. Dragovich missed this week, Schloithey and Mainy have missed a game as well and so has Donaldson, but the guys have been able to come in and play their role. Hopefully we can get them all up and going at once.

Q: Your captain Dylan Main looked extra motivated and fired up for the game, did you get much of a sense of that?
A: I didn’t sense it much to be honest. We didn’t make any special mention of this week or who we were playing or anything like that. It was about an opportunity to win another game and we think if you win six it will be pretty hard to miss a double chance so we are focused on trying to win six as quick as we can. We've got four now and we are pretty happy with that but we have a chance next week to obviously add another one. We'll recover really well and prepare to beat Swannies who have been pretty unlucky in their first couple of games. They've been in games and haven’t been far off so it will be another tough battle for us.

Q: To play a whole second half without ruckman and then about a quarter and-a-half without an important playmaker too, does that make the win mean that much more?
A: We've had a few games the last few years where we've been down a man before half-time. Even last year in the derby against East Fremantle we were three down by half-time and still ran that game out really well. It's a good trait to have that we're obviously pretty resilient and keep running, and they can keep shuffling themselves around to keep heat around the ball. We were really proud of their effort against a really strong club to start poorly and then grind back into the game and then finish really well.

Q: Is it too early for much of an update on Brock Higgins and Zac Dent?
A: Zac looks like it's a reasonably serious ankle, we're not sure, and he'll get some scans. Brock was pretty tight in the hamstring and felt like if he continued that it probably wouldn’t be great long-term, but we will know more during the week.

Q: Lost Jacob Dragovich before the game too, will he be back next week?
A: We think so. That's been our mantra all the way through to take no chances and you'd rather them miss one game than multiple. We erred with caution on him and Trav Abbott to be honest and hopefully they will be able to train during the week, and put their hands up.

Q: It might be human nature to look at Swan Districts and suffer a bit of a letdown coming off this win, how do you make sure you come out just as motivated?
A: Well hopefully we come out a bit more fired up than this week because it wasn’t a great start. But we had a quick chat after the game and the boys were pretty resilient and already looking ahead. We have some young blokes in but we do have some experience in there too and our leaders led the way this week after quarter-time, and they'll drive us again this week. Swans move the ball pretty quick and they've got some speed, and they also have some options. Their ruckman is in great nick and they've got some good key forwards, and good key backs. They have shown some really good glimpses with quick ball movement so we'll have to be on our game.