Semi-Final Reaction – South FremantleThursday, September 23, 2021 - 10:18 AM - by Chris Pike

FOR the second straight week South Fremantle had to try and dig themselves out of a significant hole to open the WAFL finals series and weren’t able to do so against Subiaco with coach Todd Curley thankful they earned a double chance.

South Fremantle opened the finals the previous week in the qualifying final and found themselves 30 points down to Claremont at Fremantle Community Bank Oval to start the second half.

On that occasion, the Bulldogs were able to deliver a stirring fightback kicking seven of the game's last nine goals to end up beating Claremont by a point on home turf to book in a second semi-final battle with Subiaco on Saturday at Leederville Oval.

It was a fourth second semi-final between the two teams at the same venue in the past six years and like the week before, South Fremantle started slowly and this time were 40 points behind early in the third quarter.

The Bulldogs did mount a fight back by kicking four quick goals and at one point closed to within 17 points but couldn’t quite get any closer before losing by 22 points.

That means South Fremantle will now host Claremont again in a preliminary final this Sunday at Fremantle Community Bank Oval with the winner to advance to the Grand Final at Optus Stadium against Subiaco.

SECOND SEMI-FINAL MATCH REPORT

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WAFL TEAM OF THE YEAR

FINALS ANALYSIS – SOUTH FREMANTLE

Looking back on Saturday's second semi-final loss to Subiaco, it was déjà vu for Curley and the Bulldogs as they lost a fourth game in the last six years at Leederville Oval on the same occasion.

But this time he just felt it was the poor first quarter that let the Bulldogs down and while they fought hard to get back into the game in the second half, it was too much of a buffer against a good team to make up.

"It was the first quarter really when it was five to one. We started alright but then got unsettled and gave up some real easy goals," Curley said. 

"Then in the second quarter I thought we were starting to fight back pretty well but gave up a couple of undefendable ones. We lost by four goals in the end and I thought again we showed some good resilience and courage to keep coming with a few blokes sore. But you can't give starts especially in finals like that.

"I thought we had lot more down in this game in the first half than we did last week. We just didn’t have more than a handful of boys who could come in at half-time thinking they had done their job. That's disappointing but I guess that's why you work to get that second chance."

The hardness at the contest was what Curley saw as the biggest different between the two teams on Saturday especially in the first half. 

And as it turned out, Jake Florenca got injured by putting his body on the line early in the game and then through a challenging first half, it was 17-year-old Jesse Motlop who stood out to Curley as one player willing to give the required physical effort.

"I think they were just harder than us to the ball to be honest. They won the ball, got it going their way and didn’t do anything that we didn’t talk about during the week. Maybe we were a bit flat, I'm not sure, but we let them score way too easy and I thought we got beaten everywhere early," he said.

"As I said to the boys at half-time, it was probably a bit of an indictment that I thought the bloke who weighed in the most and was physical, and kept his eye on the ball was the 17-year-old who was running around out there. I thought Jesse really led the way."

It's going to be a week of recovery for South Fremantle now leading into the preliminary final against Claremont and there's going to be some work needed for the likes of Florenca and captain Dylan Main to come up again and be right to take the field.

"Jake is a bit sore and we'll assess him during the week. We hope he'll be OK but it doesn't look great to be honest. We've got a few sore ones and we'll assess everyone this week, see who's available and then go from there," Curley said.

"Dylan's a bit sore I think. During the second half I thought he showed a fair bit of courage to stay out there and we'll see how he goes during the week now."

Sunday's game signals a sixth straight season for South Fremantle to at least reach a preliminary final. There were three preliminary final losses in a row before the Bulldogs broke through to get to the Grand Final in 2019 and then they won the premiership in 2020.

Now Curley is confident they can make the most of this double chance to bounce back from Saturday's loss to Subiaco to book in a rematch with the Lions to take part in a third successive Grand Final.

"That'll be the aim to make the most of getting this double chance. We still get another look and there's a lot of teams who aren’t playing anymore who would love this chance. We'll get down and get prepared, and get ready to go again," Curley said.

"There's definitely the confidence there that we can bounce back. Even in the second half we really bounced back, it's just that we didn’t do it for long enough. We were really slow and beaten around the ball, and they took their chances which didn’t help us get back into the game. 

"They put us under pressure early and then we missed a couple at the same time, and didn’t take our opportunities. We've lost games worse than that during the year and bounced back so we'll lick our wounds and go again."