In what was a major disappointment, the North Adelaide Men’s Premier League team suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of Southern Tigers for the second time this season, going down 57-83, at Hillcrest on Saturday night.

The game started brightly with Adam Schild scoring the first 2 points, but unfortunately that was the one and only time we led for the entire 40 minutes!! Southern quickly showed why they are undefeated, with relentless pressure at both ends of the floor, forcing the Boys into taking tough shots then making them pay at the other end. We fell behind 2-7, before Adam scored again, then Atem, following an offensive rebound, and it was 6-7. But the momentum was short lived and in a flash it was 6-14 and a time out had to be called to try to refocus. Unfortunately it made little difference as every effort seemed futile and by the end of the first quarter it was 11-30 and the game was almost out of reach. On a bright note, Adam had a very positive start at the offensive end with 5 points, while Alex had 4.

The 2nd was a little more positive as we were able to keep Southern to just 18 points, but we could only manage 13 ourselves, so by the main break the margin was 24 (24-48). It did start brightly enough with CJ getting himself to the line for two successful free throws and Nick registering his first score to narrow the margin to 15, but this was as close as the scores got, as Southern responded each and every time they gave up a basket. By the half, Alex and Adam (who was having his best offensive game for some time) had 9 points. Alex also had 9 rebounds.

The 3rd was much like the second with any little run the Boys managed to have, responded to quickly by Southern, despite plenty of substitutions and changes in strategies. Southern continued to dominate most areas and slowly built on their lead with limited resistance provided. At the last break the score was 39-68, truly reflecting the difference between the teams on the night. The important statistics all pointed to Southern, especially the shooting percentage, where we shot the ball at 29% and Southern at 55%!!

The last quarter was a formality as firstly Southern then ourselves took the opportunity to give the boys on the bench some exposure to the pressures of a finals like game. To his credit Matt Trandafil enjoyed a very productive 13 minutes of court time with 7 points, 5 rebounds and an assist, whilst Gab Saldavia and Riley Harrap both contributed to an 18-15 quarter!!

So overall a very poor performance, albeit against what is clearly the best team in the competition, but no excuses, they dominated from start to finish.Southern led statistically in most categories and even though we managed to get our shooting percentage up to 33% by the end of the game it was still far below what is necessary to compete at this level. Adam Schild had his best night at the offensive end for some time, finishing with 11 points, 4 rebounds, a steal and a block. The other contribution of note was Matt Trandafil as mentioned above.