Men's Game Previews - Round 14
The North Adelaide Rockets should hold the advantage in the ‘big man’ department when Nick Hambour and Pero Vasilijevic come up against Steve Pilkington and Adam Blight. South’s 188 cm guard Sammy Gazzo (22.3 ppg) will come in for plenty of attention having been South’s top scorer in their last 9 outings prior to this weekend. As the season has progressed, North guard Rhys Elliott’s form has become more consistent and as a consequence he is seeing more minutes. North would be favoured to win at home.
With Southern entering this weekend’s games on a 7 game losing streak and Centrals sitting at the foot of the table with 8 games without a victory, someone has to break the drought for a celebration on Sunday night. That assumes that it doesn’t happen on Saturday, which is highly unlikely. Both teams have relied on ‘a gang of 4’ to get it done - for Southern it’s Tristan Braithwaite, Shane Boal, Brandon Brine and Michael Florence while for Centrals it’s Wade Pidock, Zane Reeves, Gary Birmingham and Lachlan Parker. This group of 8 players figured prominently in the Round 5 clash won by Southern. One of the clubs will be ‘roaring’ on Sunday afternoon; will it be the Tigers or will it be the Lions?
With both teams expected to win on Saturday night and both teams on a sustained winning streak there can only be one winner from this contest. Whoever is successful, providing they win on Saturday night will claim the prize on offer - top spot on the premiership table. The numbers that Chris Molitor and Blake Truslove produce for West and the stats that David Cooper and Keith Krause produce for Norwood will provide plenty of interest. As well, the shooting from outside the arc of Brad Davidson (West) who was on fire last week and Andrew Webber and Todd Matthews (Norwood) will be worth watching.
Woodville 61 (M Egel 24, B Brink 12, P Steel 7, J Knight 4)
Woodville face Sturt at home and complete the weekend round of games by playing 2 of the top 3 sides, a challenging assignment. Both sides will be tested the night before and how they recover could be important. Sturt won the last encounter with good 1st and 3rd quarter returns, outscoring the Warriors 24/15 and 23/16 to claim victory. In that match Sturt in the second quarter scored only 6 points, which to date is their lowest score for a quarter of basketball. If Woodville are going to press for a finals berth they need to beat sides above them, a feat they have accomplished only once this season when they beat Forestville. Sturt should win but Woodville got close last time they played.
A lot has changed since these teams last met. Eastern has been strengthened by the inclusion of Brad Hill, Jordan Dodman and more recently Ben Madgen. For the Eagles, Doug McDonald–Taylor has joined the team after injury and Harri Harvey has returned from overseas but they have lost the services of Luke Hoban to injury and Brad Gerlach (11.6 ppg) missed Round 12. It not known if Gerlach will be available for this weekend’s games and if not, he will be a big loss. Eastern suffered their heaviest loss of the season when they last played Forestville but they are expected to be a lot more competitive at home this weekend.
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