Coach Post Match – Todd Curley WA Day

WHAT South Fremantle coach Todd Curley had to say following the WA Day Foundation Derby loss to East Fremantle ahead of this Saturday's WAFL state game against Tasmania and then a clash the following Sunday against Peel Thunder.

QUESTION: The day started well with the first couple of goals but after that it turned into a pretty tough game?
ANSWER: We weren’t very good and they were very good. We will take nothing away from East Fremantle, they were much cleaner with the ball, obviously much more efficient kicking at goal and probably when the conditions deteriorated for a while they were probably tougher than us.

Q: It's easy to point at the shots on goal you missed but they probably didn’t really allow you to play the way you have been for most of the season?
A: We did have six or seven shots running in without pressure that we missed. That is deflating for the team and we kicked 12 straight points in the second and third quarters. We certainly didn’t play well and didn’t deserve to win the game, but you have to convert to keep yourself in the game when things aren’t going your way.

Q: You mentioned toughness and that has been a strong point of the team all year, so hopefully this was just a one off?
A: If you look at trends and a pattern, you would say that we've been consistently pretty good in that area but we were well down this week. That's across the board. We were really poor and clearly beaten in that area. It's something we've got to address and be much better at for our next game.

Q: Speaking of trends, it's 13 times in-a-row now where the away team has won a Fremantle derby. Any idea why?
A: Not really. I don’t think the ground had any real bearing on this result. They came, they challenged us even with a few key personnel out and they were tougher, played better as a team and deserved their win.

Q: Did you lose a little bit of your momentum and form coming off the 16-day break?
A: Not really. We did the same that we did for the first bye and we won that one after it. We had played six or seven in-a-row leading in so the bye came at a pretty good time, but clearly we weren’t prepared for the game well enough.

Q: The fact is despite the loss, you are still on top of the ladder so you have to remember it's been a strong start to the season?
A: For us it's the mid-point of the year and we've played 10 games so we will have a bit of a mid-year review to see what we're doing well, what we can do better, what's fallen away and what opportunities are there. Clearly there's some guys who probably haven’t taken their chances the last couple of weeks and we still have some consistent form at reserves level. We just have to get back, train hard and prepare better for our next game.

Q: Losing Blaine Johnson didn’t help, do you know how bad his hamstring is and should Josh Pullman be back after the state game?
A: It wasn’t ideal that he got hurt and Johnno has been pretty good for us, but I don’t think he made an eight or nine-goal difference in the game. We have to be better than that and we've been pretty lucky with our injuries. I don’t think at this level losing one player hurts you that much, you should be able to cover it but our ball use was poor and we knew that if it was against East Fremantle they would make us pay at the other end and they did. Josh should be available no doubt but we're not sure about Blaine yet. It's a low grade hamstring so we'll just have to wait and see.

Q: Another tough day for Ashton Hams getting closely tagged where his opponent was happy to just shut him down and not go for the ball himself. Does he need some more help to work through that?
A: Clearly we'd like him to be better than he was and have more of an impact on the game, but it's pretty hard when you have an opponent who doesn’t have any intention on winning the ball or doing anything other than stopping him. It's pretty hard when you have an opponent who doesn’t want to do anything other than stop you. We tried a few things to bounce him around and it didn’t really work so we'll have to have a chat to work out something that works better for us and Ash.

Q: Every game is a big one but now you have Peel after the state game and a win would see you stay top, but a loss and you could start sliding down the ladder?
A: They're all big, you just want to get to 12 wins as quick as you can to qualify. We are well short of that and we have some work to do. We have a week off now with the state game which gives us five sessions to train and get better in. Peel was pretty good a couple of weeks ago so it will be a big test for us.