Men's Qualifying Final
North Adelaide Rockets v Forestville Eagles
Saturday July 21, 2007, 8:15pm at Hillcrest

	North Adelaide Rockets	Forestville Eagles
Minor Round Record	2nd - 15 wins and 3 losses	3rd - 13 wins and 5 losses
Head Coach	Justin Schueller	Andy Simons
Likely Starters	Erik Burdon Michael Zorich Tom Rowe Dusty Rychart Nick Hambour	Matt Sutton Brad Sullivan Scott Arnold Peter Hoban Kane Oakley
Top Scorer	Dusty Rychart - 28.8 ppg	Brenton Campbell - 21.3 ppg
Top Rebounder	Dusty Rychart - 17.7 rpg	Kane Oakley - 13.6 rpg
Top Assists	Michael Zorich - 5.5 apg	Matt Sutton - 6.2 apg
Head to head	31/3/2007      North 103 d Forestville 80 16/6/2007      North 87 d Forestville 78

 

NBL Championship-winning forward Dusty Rychart is the marquee player of Saturday's qualification final between North and Forestville, but it will be another mobile big-man that will hold the key to this game.

Eagle Kane Oakley was held to 14 points in each of his last two games against top two teams (North and Norwood), and Forestville will be looking for a higher scoring output against the Rocket front court of Rychart and Nick Hambour.

North Adelaide are the in-form team of the Central ABL men's competition, and are protecting a 9 game winning streak. They haven't lost a game since their round 9 game against Norwood in which Rychart, the winner of the last 4 player-of-the-week awards, was recovering from an international flight. He dominated the second half of the season, averaging 31.2 points and 20.9 rebounds over the last 9 games, and is in perfect form to catapault the Rockets into a double-chance semi final against Norwood.

The backcourt battles will be just as interesting. Adelaide 36er Matt Sutton is generally not required to carry the scoring load for the Eagles, but has quietly posted the league's best assist tally at 6.2 a game. His armspan means he's likely to get the defensive job on Erik Burdon, who averages 19 points a game, many of them from the car park.

In the last game between these two teams, Forestville went on a huge third quarter run to gain a comfortable lead, before North fought back in the fourth to win by 9. Former Rocket Brad Sullivan missed that game, but even with his presence, expect North to be too strong in front of another capacity Hillcrest crowd.