Curley rates Guglielmana as best small defender ahead of 100thThursday, June 18, 2015 - 8:07 PM - by Chris Pike

HIS coach feels as though he is the best small defender in the WAFL and it's difficult to argue as Adam Guglielmana prepares to play his 100th game for South Fremantle this Saturday against West Perth at HBF Arena.

It has been a long journey to the century for Guglielmana as well with the 26-year-old making his league debut in 2008 but managing just 12 games in his first two seasons forced to serve a lengthy apprenticeship waiting in the wings of the 2009 premiership team.

By 2010, he found that regular spot mostly as a midfielder and wingman before a knee injury ended his 2011 prematurely and saw him miss out on playing finals yet again – a chance he is still waiting for.

Paul Hasleby had taken over as coach by 2012 and continued to use Guglielmana through the middle but also more in the forward-line to good effect, and that’s again where he started the 2014 season but a shift to defence early last year has proved to be a masterstroke.

Ever since settling into a role in the back-line, Guglielmana has grown into the position to the point now where he gets the job on the most dangerous small or mid-sized forward of the opposition, and so far in 2015 he has proved unbeatable.

He has had the jobs twice each on Perth's Mitch Morton and George Hampson already this season as well as Peel Thunder's Leroy Jetta and Subiaco's Bernie Naylor Medal leader Shane Yarran, and been superb on each occasion.

Combined with his composure with ball in hand and good kicking skills, and the Carnarvon-native is in career-best form now as he approaches game No. 100 on Saturday in the Garlic Munchers Cup against West Perth at HBF Arena.

His new coach Todd Curley can't speak more highly of him and can't see any better small defender in the competition right now.

"Not in my opinion, he hasn't been beaten all year and he was probably pretty stiff not to get a game in the State side. But he just continues to do the job every week, week in week out. He was fantastic," Curley said.

"He's a terrific competitor and he's been super for us this year with how he has gone about it. He's having a really good year and he's waited a long time to get to 100 games so I think it will be a big day for him."

Guglielmana never saw himself as a defender having always played attacking roles in the midfield and forward previously, but it's something that he's put everything into over the past 18 months and now takes great pride in doing his job for the team every week.

"I'm enjoying it down back. I suppose in those first few years when you are playing a lot of ressies footy, you just take any spot in the team so I learnt then that any role you are given you just have to take it," Guglielmana said.

"I enjoyed playing in the midfield with Jaymie Graham tapping it down my throat for a while there before he did his knee but it's a different challenge down back and I'm enjoying with a good bunch of blokes. Most of the time I am just crapping myself from about Thursday until the final siren goes on Saturday when it's just a relief. 

"You can't let up at all playing on those sort of blokes and most of the time I'm just looking at the clock to see how long there is to go and thinking how many goals they can still kick, so it's just draining mentally but I'm enjoying it. You get big rewards if you do your job so it's not hard to keep your mind at task."

Given the long apprenticeship he had to serve and then miss out on the star-studded 2009 premiership team, and then also miss the last final the Bulldogs played in 2011 through injury, Guglielmana is proud of his journey 100 WAFL games now that hasn’t always been easy.

"It's a pretty big deal to get to 100 games. I came down here from Carnarvon when I was 17 to play in the colts and I'm 26 now so it's taken a fair time but I'm pretty proud to get there," he said.

"I guess ultimately you'd like to reach these milestones, but I remember when I signed my first contract and there was a bonus in there if you got to 50 games.

"I thought I would get there after two and-a-half years but eight years later, I'm only just getting to 100 so it doesn’t happen easily. I had to work few some things and hard times but I'm pretty proud of finally getting the rewards for that now.

"My name will now be on that locker now forever so I guess it doesn’t matter what you do from here on in, they won't scratch it off. I'm very proud of that and I guess young people coming into the club will now see my name there. That doesn’t bother me a great deal, but I am proud of it."

When Guglielmana arrived at South Fremantle to play colts in 2007, the Bulldogs were in the middle of a run of six straight finals appearances under coach John Dimmer and having won the 2005 premiership, and just before winning the 2009 flag.

So being a contender was something that he had every right to think would continue to happen and he certainly would have felt at least some of his 99 games in the WAFL so far would have been finals.

However, that hasn’t been the case and that is something now that as a leader of the club, and about to become a 100-game player that he's desperate to get a taste of.

"I'm really desperate for some success. I've never even played in a senior final because the last time we were in the finals was 2011 and I did my knee that year, so I missed out," Guglielmana said.

"In 2009, I got to play in a ressies grand final and you see blokes like Timmy Malseed, Kris Miller and Andrew Siegert in '09 play in their first grand final and you see how much they wanted it.

"You appreciate that when you see it at the time, but a few years on you get a real understanding of how they would have felt. I'm nearly at the age they were at that time so I'm really desperate to experience something similar."