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.