Curley looking forward to improved Bulldogs in 2016

SOUTH Fremantle coach Todd Curley is looking forward to his second season at the helm of the Bulldogs and with a significantly more youthful squad at his disposal, he is sensing their excitement levels lifting with proper games not far away.

Curley took over as coach of South Fremantle for the 2015 season and while it was a year that showed promise, it ultimately was another finals-less result for a fourth straight season and that's not something anyone at the Bulldogs is willing to accept.

While some experience has left with the likes of Craig White, Paul Mugambwa, James Sellar and Kyle Hams departing with Cory Dell'Olio (suspended) and Jarrod Parry (knee) to miss all of 2016, Curley likes the group the Bulldogs have put together.

That includes the return of Mason Shaw, Dylan Main, Blaine Johnson and Tom Vandeleur from the AFL system with Shane Hockey (VFL), Steven Edwards (Claremont) and Jordan Matera (TAC Cup) looking to be exciting recruits.

For Curley, 2015 was a season of adjustment for him personally at a new club and for the players to understand how he wants them to play. He feels everything is ready to click into place now in 2016.

"I guess you do feel a lot more settled coming into the second season. When you first come in there's virtually 70 new players and staff, volunteers and everyone around the club you are trying to get to know," Curley said.

"So that's been better this year obviously and the players have also got a grasp on the way we want to play and what we want to do. So we aren’t going from absolute basics, we have something to build on. I'm looking forward to it."

Curley is looking forward to all the work that he and his coaching staff, and the playing group have put in since he arrived for the 2015 pre-season will now begin to bear some fruit with encouraging results in 2016.

"Hopefully we have a better idea of them and they have a better idea themselves of the way we want to play. We all will hopefully have a better idea of what we want to stand for as a group and a club this year," he said.

"We have worked pretty hard and there has been a fair bit of change over the last 15 or 18 months. We think we are well placed and we think we have had a good summer, but every club would be saying that so we just have to wait and see."

Following a tough pre-season campaign, Curley has noticed a definite lift in energy in the playing group in training over the last week with proper games not too far away and the hard work of the pre-season largely over.

South Fremantle will hold an intra-club match at Fremantle Oval this Friday February 19 and that evening will also include the Corporate Classic for 2016.

Round 1 of the WAFL pre-season might take place without South Fremantle but then on Saturday March 5 the Bulldogs will host East Perth at Fremantle Oval. League bounce down will be at 2.15pm.

Then the following Saturday afternoon, South Fremantle takes on Clint Jones and Perth at Lathlain Park in the final hit out prior to Round 1.

"I think you can certainly feel the energy lift within the playing group once you get through that pre-season grind," he said.

"It's three or four nights a week of really long, hard sessions in the heat but now we are getting close to playing our first fair dinkum intra-club game and a couple of weeks before the first practice game, you can see that they are starting to enjoy it a bit more."

Curley's coaching tenure at South Fremantle started in style with a 35-point win over his former team West Perth at Fremantle Oval under lights at Fremantle Oval.

Now it is the same script to open 2016 in another night game against the Falcons at the port and Curley can't wait.

"It will be a good game for Round 1. It's on TV and hopefully we get a good crowd down here. It will be fantastic to get the season started," Curley said.

"You can train and play intra-clubs with match practice as much as you like, but we are pretty eager to test ourselves against opposition to be able to gauge ourselves.

"That all leads into Round 1 and obviously they played in a grand final last year and we didn’t play finals, so it's a good yard stick for us first up to see where we're at."