Todd Curley Q and A – Round 17

SOUTH Fremantle coach Todd Curley's weekly question and answer session during the 2015 McDonald's WAFL Premiership season.

Curley spoke this week following the eight-point win over East Fremantle that returned South Fremantle to the WAFL's top five, and looks ahead to this Saturday's clash with East Perth at Fremantle Oval.

QUESTION: Obviously a very important win. You were able to play well with the breeze in the second and last quarters, and hang in there kicking into. You must have been especially pleased with the way you finished?
ANSWER: Oh look it was pleasing. We certainly didn’t make the most of our chances in the first half I didn’t think, but we hung in there, kicked a really important goal just before quarter-time when we were 17 points down. That was a really important one. We did a lot of things right again, but it was a couple of little slip ups in a low scoring game which puts you under pressure. We made some good strides forward.

Q: You had to take your chances in the last quarter to come from behind, but Callum Ah Chee's two goals were outstanding, and then Josh Pullman and Cory Dell'Olio stepped up with big goals too?
A: I think the pleasing thing was the boys who took the shots, especially Callum and Josh, looked really settled with the ball and they looked like they expected to go back and kick the goal, which can make a big difference when you're lining up. And they kicked them as a result.

Q: We know the talent of Callum Ah Chee, but it's a great tick for him that he was able to have such a big impact in his league debut and have such a big say in the win?
A: I think the pleasing thing was that he came in and had an impact from the start to the very end. For a young player sometimes it's a challenge, but he was really clean and I think he's a really good kid. You could see the impact he's made on the group when he kicked his first goal and everyone made sure they got to him. It was a good start for him.

Q: Josh Pullman came back and really showed how important he is to the forward structure, and he took his chances well?
A: He works overtime, he's a really hard worker, and gives you a target all the time. He got some reward for all that work that he did, and he kicked well on goal, which was pleasing. We've missed him. We've had that patch over the last five weeks where we just haven’t been able to get Pullman, Dell'Olio, Mugambwa and Dragovich all out on the same park with Saunders obviously out and Schloithey making his way back. But now that they're all back hopefully we can get them to play together a bit more.

Q: Bringing in Josh Branchi allowed you to play Brock Higgins forward and James Sellar down back, and all three did well in their roles?
A: I thought Josh was pretty good and I thought Higgo was enormous especially in the last quarter. It allowed him to come onto the ball a little bit fresher to give us a bit of a lift, and I thought Jimmy was pretty solid down back.

Q: The Hams boys were just amazing finishing with 69 possessions between them and they just weren’t going to let you lose?
A: They're fierce competitors and it's just their decision-making under pressure, and to know when to go fast, when to hold the ball, when to find a target when their doesn’t seem to be any is their strength, and has been their whole careers. They were super again.

Q: You knew what was riding on this game and if you lost it would have made it hard to play finals, but what did you say at three quarter-time and how pleased are you to win?
A: We are really pleased obviously that we got the win and we obviously have got some areas that we still need to work on, but we still think we are doing a lot of stuff right. At three quarter-time it was nothing out of the ordinary, it was just about believing in yourselves, trust your teammates and keep winning the hard ball. That was the message from the start and it was a funny old day weather-wise and all that sort of stuff, but I thought we used the ball pretty well with the wind and scored pretty well.

Q: Back in the top five now but you need to keep winning to stay there. East Perth next week and they are another team trying to take your spot?
A: They all will be and we play all the teams virtually above us or around us now for the rest of the season. It's going to be the same for them, if you win you'll pop up and if you lose you'll drop down. It's going to be like that for the last five games.

Q: What sort of challenge does East Perth present?
A: Obviously they will have the sprinkling of AFL players but they work pretty hard, and they've been in pretty good form. It's another challenge for us on a bit of a short break after they played Saturday. It's only a day but we just have to do whatever we can to keep winning.

Q: Is Ben Saunders getting closer?
A: Not close enough, but closer. He's still a couple of weeks away but we're confident he will play two or three at least before the end of the year. Hopefully he'll play at least one now before the bye.