Week #1 recap - Game #1 vs Kalgoorlie Giants (88 - 118 loss)

Kalgoorlie road trips are always an interesting experience. With the squad we have it was a good opportunity for them to get to know each other and I think we have come out of it a much better team.

I hate making excuses and as a coach I need to realise sometimes that rather than excuses, it's an explanation, reason or legitimate justification. Personality traits aside, we have a number of legitimate reasons for what at the end of the day was a poor game.

The game started well, and the gameplan was working well. It took about a quarter for Tim Kruge to become comfortable with how he should be playing (it was after all his first game with the team), and adjust to the referee's. The players that played in the first half (7) showed the points of emphasis we have been working on, and executed well. We were down 3 at the first quarter, and 5 at the half. Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the first half was we never adjusted to Kaminski (the new Giants import) who was moving well off the ball and getting cheap putback baskets. At the half he had 15 rebounds, 7 offensive. The giants had 19 to our 9 second chance points and that was really the ballgame to the half.

When we hit the floor for the second half, it became apparent that the Giants had stepped it up a notch. Their defensive intensity was awesome and showed us how a defending champion can "put some starch into their defense" as Giants Coach Steve Charlton put it in his post game address. Being absolutely honest, we looked scared and as though we didn't trust our teammates. All of the things that the individuals had shown in the first half that we had been working on went out the window. They fell back into their own personal bad habits, and we shot bad shots or coughed up the ball...which led to cheap transition baskets, and so the flow went.

We slowed and tried to adjust, and reversed the flow briefly at times, but not sufficiently to bring it back. Quarter by quarters:

Eagles: 27 / 27 / 21 / 13
Giants: 30 / 29 / 30 / 29

Now to the 'explanation' from the Eagles perspective.

From my perspective the big thing this points out is our lack of game preparation. With our late withdrawal from the Country Cup, which would have given us a handful of SBL quality games, we really were under prepared game play wise. Also with Tim arriving the day before the Redbacks scratch match, he hadn't participated in a game with us so in future a scratch match the week before involving the entire squad would probably be wise.

I also need to keep in mind, somewhat related to the above, that we have a very new lineup. Again Coach Charlton commented that when he reviewed the list he only recognised 5 or 6 of the names. Our starting lineup consisted of 2 players from last year (Moon and Taylor), a 17 year old (Balcombe), a player that joined us this year from Stirling and only just returned to training last week from a fractured finger (McLennan) and our new import (Kruge).

Add to that a bench of another new player from Stirling that only started training with us about 4 weeks ago (Stack), an inexperienced player (Burbage) and 3 rookies (Friend, Nichole and Donlagic) and we really didn't have the preparation leading into this game we needed. Entirely my fault and it wont happen again.

However we now take the positives out of it. After the bus trip, crowd and noise, and new lineup we played exceptionally well for a lot of the game. Individuals and the team showed that the work we have done is paying off, with a lot of these things showing through. We will now take the intensity and focus we have developed and continue our hard work for week #2. Also, add import Mike Jones (immigration: 2-3 weeks) and local Ty Alabakis (inj. - collarbone: 3-4 weeks) and we look much stronger.

Other positives to come out of the weekend were:

• The bonding of the team in general. I believe we have a very good group of people in this team and it is starting to show.


• The performance of Jarrod Balcombe. 24pts, 7rbds, 3ast, 1bs (a huge block on a Kaminski dunk), 1st in 41:42mins.


• The performance of Nathan Friend. Whilst he has a fairly modest stat line of 8pts on 3/5, 1rbd, 2ast, 2to in 24:14mins, he showed solid play belying his rookie status.


• The performance of Tim Kruge. Tim is a very solid player and a great person. His 23pts, 10rbds, 2ast, 2bs in 38:14mins was invaluable and he has been a great pickup for the team.

So I believe the future is looking good. We will hit the training track hard this week, and prepare ourselves for week #2, which has us matched up against the new Eastern Suns at Lesmurdie on Friday night, and then our first home game against the Joondalup Wolves on Saturday night.

The build up to game #1, 2008

Well, it’s here…we had our last training session of the pre-season, and we’re ready to climb aboard the bus to Kalgoorlie on Saturday morning (at 5:45am, I believe the players hate me but hey I’m used to that heheh).

We have a reasonable lineup considering one of our imports has not yet arrived and we had a few withdrawals and changes along the way.

#5 Jon Moon (180cm, 75kg, 25yrs)

#6 John Taylor (189cm , 75kg, 22yrs)

#7 Nic Donlagic (194cm , 92kg, 18yrs)

#8 Jarrod Balcombe (196cm , 80kg, 20yrs)

#9 Damian Stack (195cm , 120kg, 32yrs)

#10 Andrew McLennan (191cm , 90kg, 33yrs)

#11 Clint Burbage (197cm , 99kg, 25yrs)

#13 Jeremy Nichole (199cm , 92kg, 19yrs)

#15 Nathan Friend (187cm , 77kg, 18yrs)

#50 Tim Kruge (204cm , 111kg, 23yr)

Damian Stack has been training with us for a few weeks now and adds presence and smarts to the team, which helps given we have a few young players joining the group. Tim is settling in nicely, and overall things are coming together. Mike Jones is yet to arrive, we hope to have him here soon.

The opportunity to play the defending champions first up and be present at the unveiling of their championship banner is terrific. We expect a fairly boisterous crowd (is that the ultimate understatement or what) to be there to support the team, and it will certainly be an initiation to remember for the rookies playing their first SBL game (3 in this group being Friend, Donlagic and Nichole).

So time to let the game do the talking…here we go…

Week -2 Recap - Scrimmage #2 vs Perth Redbacks

It’s been a while since the last entry, things have been a little nuts in my life to be honest. I am doing 50 hour weeks at work (you know, the place where they actually pay you to do stuff), and life outside of work is a mess. Excuses, excuses I know. Anyway, the season is fast approaching so I will have to stop making excuses.

We played our second (and last) scratch match of the season against the Perth Redbacks yesterday at Belmont. We fielded a fairly weak team unfortunately, with injuries and illness forcing some players out. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing…Andrew McLennan fractured his finger in our first scratch match, Ty Alabakis broke his collarbone in this one. Perhaps this year we are getting them out of the way early *touch wood*. Well that’s how I’m looking at it anyway.

We had 9 players, lost 1 to injury, and 2 fouled out as I would expect as we adjust our game. Congratulations to John Taylor for fouling out of his first game EVER! Quite an achievement, I think it was the first time he had played ‘real defence’ hahahaha (Just joking JT…honest…).

The score eventually was 112-98 in the Redbacks favour. Well done to Dave Harris and his team, they have assembled a very talented group with a lot of young players coming through. It’s good to see a club supporting a local coach and encouraging the building of a program based around local talent. They played with intensity, were hard at the ball and executed well. Good luck for the rest of the season lads.

We played fairly well, in particular our opening half I was quite pleased with our execution at both ends of the floor. Still work to do, but with 2 imports and a couple of local players out that I would expect to make considerable impact, I am pleased with how we performed and where we are at.

Many thanks to Margaret Prior for her excellent photography and allowing me to use them in the blog.

Time Kruge arrived on Friday, and was in the stands to watch the game and meet the players. Tim is as keen to get on the floor and play as I am to have him join! It will be good to see him finally hit the court, learn our plays and start meshing with the team.

So 2 weeks to go, 8 hours of training, and we climb aboard the bus to Kalgoorlie to watch the Giants unveil their premiership banner. If nothing else it’s going to be an exciting start to the season and a great introduction to SBL basketball for our rookies.