Newly appointed South Fremantle coach Craig White says he is looking to build trust and relationships between himself and the players as he embraces his new role. 

After six years at the helm for Curtin Wesley’s A-grade men’s side, 2025 will mark a new era for White as he takes on his first WAFL head coaching position on a two-year contract at the Bulldogs. 

White, who played 192 league games for South Fremantle, will replace the outgoing Todd Curley after he announced his departure from the club in August. 

Curley was the longest-serving coach for the Bulldogs and ironically coached his eventual successor in 2015 – White’s final year of WAFL football before delving into coaching. 

Speaking on Sports Breakfast, White says he would like to incorpoate elements of his predecessor and former coach’s style into his own method. 

“He reached out to me yesterday and wished me all the best and I congratulated him on such a wonderful career as a long-serving coach at South Fremantle. He had a very good stint,” he said.

“The one year I had with Todd was very good. I was a senior player,  my form was dropping off and I was coming to the end. The way that he helped me through that, his communication was great. 

“He gave me a game or two extra back in the reserves, I got back in at the end of the year and it was something I respected highly.

“It’s something I’m trying to take with me on my coaching career – the importance of communication and giving honest feeback back, but being fair with it as well. It’s hopefully something I’ll use over the coming years.”

While the WAFL is new territory for White, the realm of coaching isn’t unfamiliar for him. 

Along with his stint at Curtin Wesley in the PFL, he has also spent time under the tutalage of Darren Harris at Claremont as an assistant coach. 

He’s also tasted premiership success as a coach, taking Curtin Wesley to three grand finals in A and B-grades, as well as the Balmain Dockers where he coached and captained the side to a flag in the Sydney Football League in 2012. 

He believes that his philosophies as coach, which include relationships, trust, enjoyment of the game and good training standards are a receipe for success and something he hopes to instill in the group. 

“I’m relatively young in coaching terms and relationships and trust are a big one for me,” he said. 

“I keep it relatively simple – I feel like training standards are really important, we need to be able to train to a certain standard to be able to perform over the weekend.

“Then effort and intensity is a big one, bringing that consistently, I think is the hardest part. I think boys can flutuate in their form and that probably depends on where their effort’s at, so I want to make sure that my relationships are big and that it builds trust with the players. 

“Ultimately just having some fun along the way. What I’ve learned over the past eight years is I see the boys perform when they’re enjoying it. When they’re not enjoying it, they tend to get scared of failure and we want to set them up for success and see the boys at their best.” 

South Fremantle fell a painful two points short of making finals this season despite sitting in the top five for a majority of the season. 

The Bulldogs dropped out of finals in round 19, losing two of their last five games. They finished in sixth with 10 wins, seven losses and a draw in hand.

White says player interviews will be conducted over the coming days and weeks, as he looks to keep a core group of players together looking ahead to next year. 

“We’re just really keen to retain all the guys that are young and vibrant and guys do get a little bit older in the WAFL but hopefully a new coach and a new environment will give them a little bit of energy and motivation to go again,” he said. 

“Hopefully once I’ve got them committed we can build relationships to keep the group together over a number of years to ultimately strive to have some success.” 

IMAGE: Only Perth