EFL: South Croydon starting to click to have the Bulldogs premiership defence on track

SOUTH Croydon captain Daniel King has revealed the Bulldogs headhunted coach Luke McCormick for the role last year as the defending premiers again establish themselves as one of the teams to beat.

Max King flies for a mark on Saturday. Picture: Steve Bibby

SOUTH Croydon captain Daniel King has revealed the Bulldogs headhunted coach Luke McCormick for the role last year as the defending premiers again establish themselves as one of the teams to beat this season.

The Bulldogs have reached the Queen’s Birthday weekend with a 6-2 record but are one of several Division 1 teams chasing benchmark Vermont.

With Michael King, Daniel Cooper and Jake Tucker sharing the load up forward, South Croydon has kicked more than 100 points in all bar one game and have enjoyed an average winning margin of 75 points the past four rounds.

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After the return of King and Nick Molnar and additions of Cooper and Liam Tobin, among others, over the summer, King said the Bulldogs were starting to click near the midpoint of the Eastern Football League season.

Jake Tucker has been one of South Croydon’s focal points. Picture: Steve Bibby

South Croydon will be further boosted after this weekend’s bye with the returns of injured trio Matt Jones, Jason Want and Ben McDonald.

“I think we’re a little bit quicker than what we were last year,” King said.

“It took us a little bit of time with ‘Patch’ (Leigh Adams) last year for that game plan to work and I suppose we’re playing with a similar game plan, with a couple of little tweaks.

“Over those first couple of weeks we were able to get a couple of wins but we weren’t playing at our best … the last three weeks it is starting to come together a little bit more.”

King said the Bulldogs identified McCormick as the coach to lead them through 2018 after it was revealed Adams had accepted the position at VFL club Coburg.

“I was part of the interview process to get him (McCormick) and we actually went after him as opposed to him applying for the job,” he said.

“We went on the basis of his character and personality thinking he would fit our group well.

“From that, once we met him … we thought he was a really good fit and I remember going away from that meeting and thinking, ‘we’ve really got to get him’.”

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