“If someone claims you will never succeed, fail only to listen, for when you prove them wrong, it shall be the sweetest success you will ever know.” - Al Boudreau

Answer me this – did we not finish 2^nd on the ladder at the end of the regular season? We are exactly where we wanted to be at this time of the year. Heading into a Semi-finals series, against a quality opposition, that no one expects us to win which is dumb founding to me but exactly the way I like it. Let the rest of the “experts” worry about that as we prepare to take battle against a Wolves side that are looking for Hawk blood. This will be tight as both teams are stacked with both experience and quality young players that can swing a game in their teams direction in a short time.

We will have to counter and contain the reigning MVP, Damien Matacz, the renowned hard nut in Brad Robbins, quality young players in Rob Huntington, Trian Iliadis and Reece Maxwell even before mentioning Seb Salinas who had an amazing series against Geraldton. I have a lot of respect for this team and believe they are really well coached by Craig Friday and his assistant Luke Brennan. We will have to control the tempo and execute at both ends of the floor to win this series, which I know that we can do, I am a big believer in hard working reaping the rewards and we are the hardest working team in the SBL.

Against Mandurah over the weekend you saw that our defense is the catalyst for our success. This series will be no different, if we play the defense that we know as a team we can play and control that end of the floor we will be in a great position. We have made some tweaks offensively that will put us in a good position to score enough to win as long as we play hard defense. The team is really looking forward to the challenge that is front of us and have prepared well.

On a side note. Tevin Jackson has played his last game for us this season as he headed to the USA on Wednesday to head to College. I would like to thank Tevin for his efforts this season and wish him all the best over his college career. I believe that he can be an amazing player if he put his mind to it and works hard every time he hits the floor. Tevin changed the series against Mandurah with his defense and I think this is where he can be elite. I will watch in anticipation as this amazing young man takes the basketball world by storm.

Please make your way up to Joondalup this weekend to support us. In that environment having our supporters there makes a huge difference, on the weekend you were the extra player we needed. I look forward to seeing a sea of blue in the house of green.

As ONE

Nixy