Injuries lay big men low

BREAKING AWAY: Old School’s Rongomai Smith takes the ball upcourt against East Coast in Gisborne club basketball. Smith and his teammates will have their hands full containing the Dragons’ Jasper Wills in their game tonight. Picture by Paul Rickard

EVEN juggernauts can break down.

Three weeks out from Gisborne club basketball’s grand final, Old School’s 1.98m (6ft 6in) Thomas Tindale is in doubt for the Week 9 main event with the Dragons at 8.30pm tonight, with a strained right calf muscle.

And 195cm (6ft 5in) Gisborne Boys’ High School centre Sam Veitch will miss both tonight’s 5.30pm game against SE Systems and tomorrow’s 6.30pm clash with the 9ers (the first of the school teams’ catch-up games for the Term 3 holidays) with a strained right knee.

Tonight at 6.30pm, 190cm (6ft 3in) Nelson Brown, in the absence of Konnor Gibson, must control the middle against the athletes of East Coast, and at 7.30pm, City Lights’ pivot Luka Kablar may well cross swords with 9ers strongman Williamson Maraki.

Auto Go Pure Sound’s 2m (6ft 7in) Stefan Pischief and 6ft 5in Dale Hailey will make life hard for Lytton High School at 5.30pm tomorrow. Lytton also have to play the Coast at 7.30pm in the second catch-up game. That will be a true test of their stamina and courage.

If Tindale is unable to take the floor for Old School, 193cm (6ft 4in) Rongomai Smith, captain Reg Namana and TK Moeke are all capable of guarding the Dragons’ Jasper Wills, whose hard-nosed back-up includes veteran Ray Noble and Te Ahi Te Hau-Otene.

“He can be a handful when he gets his mid-range jump shot going,” Tindale said of Wills.

“From the tip, defensively, I’ll have to get a hand up in his face and, offensively, I’ll have to take the fight to him — try to get him into foul trouble.”

While Te Hau-Otene played superbly against Campion for 14 points in Week 7, tonight Noble’s defensive presence and nous could once again be decisive. His physicality and ability to stop good players from scoring remains. Many resort to pleading for intervention by the referees — a tell-tale sign that it is too hot for them in the kitchen.

The Dragons’ player-coach defensive match-up with Old School at close quarters aside, Old School’s scorers fill their boots on a good night, whether the opposition are in their first season or their 20th.

Smith racked up 35 points against Marquand Samuels’ new 9ers in Week 5, and the following Monday made two three-point plays in his 24 points against the old hands of SE Systems.

Dragons captain Keenan Ruru-Poharama and teammate Te Angi Te Hau have always shot the ball well. Te Hau proved two weeks into the competition that he is one of the men to watch beyond the arc, hitting five three-point shots in the 59-44 win against Systems.

Ruru-Poharama said his side would have to play their best defence so far this season.

“Old School have a big presence inside,” he said.

“Where City Lights tend to look for the outside shot, Old School are very capable inside or out.”

Run them off the floorNamana said: “We’re going to look to run them off the floor and put pressure on the ball defensively. We’re going to look to attack the basket on offence.”

It could well be close. Until Scott Muncaster’s City Lights beat the Dragons 56-38 in Week 6, City Lights, the Dragons and Old School had been tied at the top of the table. A fortnight ago, City Lights and Old School drew 53-all.

Both Old School and the Dragons hope that a big man could tip the scales in their favour.

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Was last Monday a flash in the pan?

Dwayne Tamatea’s Boys’ High team went down fighting, 54-46, against Old School, and SE Systems upset Pure Sound 53-40 — intriguing results.

Tamatea has a challenge for his talented point guard Holden Wilson: “The big thing for him is to be consistent. I want to see if he can play like he did last Monday, week in, week out.

“I want the team to do what they did then but also attack the hoop, look for easy opportunities to score.”

The Week 8 performance for 20 points was a breakthrough for Wilson, and potentially a turning point. He has always been a talented ball-handler, but to produce 20 points against the league co-leaders and have the generalship — if not the winning — of the game in his hands, took him into uncharted territory.

Tyrese Tuwairua-Brown scored 15 points against Namana and company while looking calm and collected in the process.

Against SE Systems tonight, both guards will need to be at their best again, as will Tawhiti Rehutai, who will provide Boys’ High with a third “weapon” capable of scoring in double digits. The 6ft 2in forward will operate in the middle without Veitch.

While Systems don’t have a post player in the class of Tindale or Smith, in Will Locquard they have a penetrative guard who could run amok if Boys’ High aren’t on high alert in transition.

Locquard has swept across the floor like a force of nature in the past fortnight and some of the finishes he’s provided have been breathtaking.

Against the pound, he scored 13 points, and teammate Kahn Grayson (15pts) showed a silky shooting touch. Grayson is classy.

Daley Riri made a successful return after missing Week 7 and Systems are riding high.

Some years are tough for the veterans, but 2017 has seen their fortunes rise — to this point.

Mindful of threatClub captain Adrian Sparks is mindful of the threat posed by the revitalised school team.

“Their press is impressive and their speed . . . it hurts my knees just thinking about having to keep up with them,” he said.

“We need our wise heads, Anton (Riri) and Jackson (Leach), to link up with the run-and-gun lads.”

Run-and-gun means Locquard, Grayson and Daley Riri. Although Systems may miss Wairoa-based Keith Lewis, bar that legend they have all hands on deck.

And if Boys’ High produce the same match-effort tonight as they did last week, this will be some opener.

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For City Lights, life seems to be a breeze.

But while the defending champions might be expected to win Game 3 this evening against the 9ers convincingly, Scott Muncaster’s men have shown steel when they’ve needed to this season.

A fortnight ago they drew 53-all with Old School at bay a fortnight ago, and two weeks before that they beat Lytton 102-35. Muncaster scored 35 points against Lytton in the absence of Genesis Bartlett-Tamatea, who was a match-winner in Week 8 against Campion College with 11 points. But even had Bartlett-Tamatea been available, he could not have stemmed the tide against City Lights.

“We just come to the YMCA and do what we do — we know it wins games,” Muncaster said.

“I see this as another chance for us to get together and gel.”

Continuity has not been a problem for City Lights this season, and the return of Carl Riini from injury has been a welcome boost. While they have a deserved reputation as a jump-shooting team, few sides run the floor like them.

Dom Wilson is in Australia and Pila Lolohea cannot make the game. In their absence, the great form of Zade Donner (14pts in the 65-42 win against East Coast) and the availability of Francis Reid become important factors for City Lights.

The 9ers proved last week that they could disrupt the structure of one of the league’s premier clubs, the Dragons.

While the league’s No.3 club beat the 9ers 50-36, it is a difficult to maintain discipline against unstructured opposition because much of that discipline is centred on resistance to opposition tactics — a clear strategy.

Flexibility and adaptability play a part, but where no pattern whatsoever exists, a systems approach can be sorely tested — as that of the Dragons was in Week 8.

Hoera Mohi and Jesse Fleming have been the 9ers’ two most consistent performers. They scored 19 and 12 points respectively last Monday. They are leaders in a team full of athletic, high-quality sportsmen — and they now have a titan in Williamson Maraki.

With more time on the floor, he could help to make the league’s newest recruits genuinely competitive against the competition’s middle strata.

It is tough to go toe to toe with the likes of City Lights and Old School because they have a fleet of big men who recognise space and exploit it.

City Lights’ Luka Kablar is an excellent passer, as is Ryan Walters. The 9ers must constantly watch out for the trademark sleight of hand and back-door plays that make the 6ft 5in Croatian (Kablar) and the only club championship-winning player-coach of a school team in Gisborne Basketball Association history (Walters, with Gisborne Boys’ High School in 2008) such fun to watch.

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Brandon Paul’s East Coast team go into tonight’s clash with Campion as hot favourites.

Of Campion’s regular line-up, only point guard Orlando Pedraza, forward Tahran Ward and emerging talent Nelson Brown are set to take the court. Captain Patrick Murphy is still out with injury, and Fraser Robb, Ollie Simpson and Tana Ward are all away on a school skiing trip at Mt Ruapehu.

Campion coach Shane McClutchie, who hopes to have Konnor Gibson back in his line-up next Monday, said: “He’s worked hard on his basketball and he could be a force to be reckoned with.

“Tonight, we need Nelson to hold the middle and box out defensively, and attack the boards on offence.”

The Coast under Paul are at their best playing uptempo basketball, running the floor and using their quickness to create opportunities to steal the ball and score on the break. Their guard Jesse Torrey has hands that are among the quickest in the league, a wicked cross-over dribble and a classic three-point shot.

The Coast can extend good opposition but need at least two players to fire. Last Monday, the two who did were Drae Calles and Whetu Haworth.

Calles was born to the basketball purple, son of the outstanding Rising Sun Josh Calles, and Haworth plays his ’ball wholeheartedly. He is an unselfish player, and his 14 points complemented Calles junior’s 16-point haul nicely.