Bulldogs primed for another finals assaultThursday, August 30, 2018 - 2:21 PM - by Chris Pike

FIVE weeks ago South Fremantle's season was looking shaky, but they have now won four straight games impressively entering a third straight WAFL finals campaign with virtually a squad to pick from aside from triple Bernie Naylor Medallist Ben Saunders.

South Fremantle has finished second in each of the past two WAFL seasons before ending up falling in the preliminary finals of both seasons, to Peel Thunder in 2016 and Subiaco in 2017.

But the majority of the playing group recommitted to giving it another crack as a unit in 2018 having played so much football together and now they have again given themselves a chance at success, but it hasn’t been without some hiccups throughout the season.

After losing to Subiaco in Round 2 by 58 points to open the season, South Fremantle got on a roll winning the next five matches before two six-point losses to Claremont and Perth in the space of three weeks.

The Bulldogs did respond with three solid wins over East Perth, Claremont and Peel Thunder before their two worst performances of the year came in Rounds 15 and 16 in losses to Subiaco and Peel.

That left South Fremantle fighting with West Perth over third position but more importantly needing to bounce back and rediscover their best form if they were to be a factor come finals time.

But South Fremantle's response over the past month has been tremendous beating West Perth by five points, Swan Districts by 30, Perth by 78 and East Fremantle by 113 to end in second position with a 13-5 record.

That gives South Fremantle a 44-14 over the past three years coming into another finals campaign beginning this Saturday against West Perth in the qualifying final at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

With Ashton Hams having already announced his retirement and Haiden Schloithe, Ryan Cook, Blayne Wilson, Shaun Bewick, Brock Higgins, Cory Dell'Olio and Adam McIntosh all having played more than WAFL matches, they know time together is running out.

Curley is proud of his group for the way they have finished the season to enter the finals in good form, but moreover is glad they have stuck together as a group to have another crack at the club's first premiership since 2009.

"I think they are just excited to be back in the finals to have another go. When you lose finals, some teams fall away and our guys have shown some real resilience to work hard to again to give themselves another opportunity," Curley said.

"That's all you can do and the more chances you give yourself and the more times you qualify, the more chances you have of being successful. We think we've got better and hopefully over the next month we can prove that."

Curley is pleased that the Bulldogs have entered the finals in good form with the four straight wins after those disappointing losses to Subiaco and Peel.

Health-wise they are in good shape too heading into Saturday's clash with West Perth. And despite having won eight straight against the Falcons, Curley knows that all that counts for little once the finals actually get underway.

"It's always good because you're in the finals and at the start of the year you just want to qualify, and we've done that. Once you qualify you aim for a double chance and we can tick that off," he said.

"Now all of a sudden it's a new tournament in the finals and what we've done the last 18 rounds doesn’t mean a lot other than hopefully got better by practicing the way we want to play over the next month.

"We've got a really tough game coming up but we feel like we've prepared as well as we can, and we look forward to that challenge."

Ryan Cook, Ashton Hams, Brock Higgins, Cory Dell'Olio, Brandon Donaldson and Marlion Pickett are all players who didn’t line up last Saturday against East Fremantle but will be right to go this week so there will be challenges at the selection table for Curley and his coaching staff.

The only player unavailable is triple Bernie Naylor Medallist Ben Saunders who remains unlikely to return throughout the finals due to a knee injury that still requires being in a brace for the next two weeks.

"They will all be available so it will be a long selection meeting during the week. They will all definitely be right to play which is exciting but it's going to be some tough decisions because there were some boys who played pretty well out there this week," Curley said.

"He's probably unlikely but we really won't know for a couple of weeks. He's got to be in the brace for a couple of weeks and then they'll have another look at it and assess it again. 

"Until we see how that goes after the first two weeks we can't worry about the next stage of progression. We'll give him every chance."

While Curley's South Fremantle has won eight straight matches against West Perth including in the 2016 qualifying final, he won't be taking the Falcons lightly especially after the two wins this year against them only came by a combined 13 points.

"The thing they are this year is they are really well organised playing really selfless footy. They have probably gone back to basing themselves around defence and they've been a really good defensive team," Curley said.

"Then they have some really talented forwards with Keitel and Strijk who will share the goalkicking. Knott has bobbed up too and there's guys like Chalmers so they have a lot of guys that can score but two real key forward targets. 

"They defend really well as well and make it hard for you to score so we've had two good battles this year and I'm sure this week will be the same."