Reg Namana (10pts) played a superb game, as did old hand Darren Paewai. Paewai senior and his son Corban, Harley Phillips, TK Moeke and Gary Harding all played key roles for Pirates.
The Dream Team struck the first blow of the final, forward Ryan Walters hitting a three-pointer from the right corner.
Dream Team captain Scott Muncaster led his team’s scorers with 15 points, including three three-pointers. Kit Maile (14pts) gave the Team a second scorer in double figures, Pirates restricting 6ft 8in Jasper Wills to eight points in total. The big centre tried hard but managed only one field goal in the second half.
Carl Riini also made the extra effort, having already turned out in Leaderbrand Poverty Bay’s 38-25 loss in the Heartland Championship to defending Meads Cup champions Mid-Canterbury: he scored seven points and hit one three-pointer, whereas in his outfit’s 81-64 first-round win, Riini hit three of the Dream Team’s 15 perimeter shots.
The Dream Team were 15-12 in front at quartertime, Smith stepping up early on for Pirates and — somewhat unusually — taking a three-point shot. Following that, Tamatea hit a “trey” to close the scoring, a shot that would have sent a chill through the hearts of Dream Team supporters in the 300-strong crowd, and with good reason. Tamatea proceeded to hit another three of the same on the resumption, Pirates taking a 28-26 lead at halftime. They went into the fourth period 47-40 up.
It was then that Tindale — who was still yet to score — showed the biggest basketball crowd of the year the sort of form that netted him 16 points for the St. Kilda Saints, in their A Grade victory in Dunedin last year: that well-established club’s 18th championship.
“He’s immovable,” said Walters, who along with Tui and Wills was tasked with keeping the Pirates’ titan under wraps.
“He uses his size well and has some good low-post moves as well as soft shooting touch around the basket.”
Tindale made two three-point plays in the last quarter, the second of which was a fall-away jump shot, exhibiting the polish of another fine low-post player, Bayden Shortland, while matching former Rising Sun Robson Tavita in terms of physical presence: it was the most memorable play of the final.
“It was a scrappy game — there were nerves in the first half, we rushed plays — but then we settled in the second half and got a lead,” said victorious captain Gary Harding.
“They were always going to take three-point shots but we made them do it under pressure. It’s been a long season: I’m just glad that we had the playing numbers to get through it!”
Harding’s opposite acknowledged that the Dream Team’s run-and-gun style bore some similarities to 2012 champions Bull Rush — they of the singular, perfect record (12/12) — but added that Wills’s size at close quarters gave the Dream Team a different dimension.
“We’re disappointed to have come up short but it was a great game, physical, chippy, what a grand final’s supposed to be,” Muncaster said.
“We weren’t fully on our game and while we’re far from just a three-point shooting team, we do live or die by our outside shots — they weren’t on and that really hurt us. We got close but just unable to finish down the stretch.”
In the final analysis — on the floor — 2015 reads “Pirates 2, Dream Team 1”, and Pirates’ overall height advantage was a telling factor.
With Tindale, a behavioural specialist at Waikirikiri School, looking to further his studies while remaining in Gisborne next year — up to play club basketball if time allows, it would be a good thing for basketball if both Pirates in the men’s grade and Mackeys return in the women’s championship: it is an outstanding feat, for a new club in any code to make it as far as a final in their debut season.
Two in a row: and this time, they won it the hard way.
While 2013-2014 men’s champions the East Coast Mariners won their titles by margins of three and four points yet are no more, Ngati Porou might have run out big winners in both 2014, 2015 . . . but there the similarities end.
In 2014, beset and depleted by injuries, Ngati Porou nevertheless ran away from the GBA under-17s 61-29.
This time around, they beat newcomers Mackeys 69-37 but while injury-free, their opposition were much more experienced and three times more physical than O’Neill Wilson-Peipi’s brave young team last year.
Ngati Porou’s captain Bronya McMenamin, women’s league MVP in 2014, played superb defence: the aggressive Mackeys team were denied a direct route to the basket.
She, Tiara Weir and company had the solidity and experience to stand up to their fast, totally committed opponents — 17-year-old Ihipera Mackey topped her team’s scoresheet with 13 points, including two three-pointers, but Ngati Porou have at least three to four inches a player overall on either of the GBA u15s or Lytton High School, the teams Mackeys beat to make the final.
McMenamin scored 14 points but Tiara Weir led all scorers with 17 points and she played a dream final offensively: she made tough driving lay-ups, she turned to score in the post and she finished the fast-break.
In more than a decade of covering club basketball, this correspondent has not seen a tall player improve so much, and that player’s fundamental skills improve as much, as in this case. This type of improvement in skill, albeit at club level, as opposed to representative level, points to a lift in the women’s game here: the under 15s made it further this year — to the national quarterfinals — than any GBA girls’ or boys’ age-group team had before.
Ngati Porou were 14-11 ahead at quartertime before racing out to 38-23 and, down the home stretch, led 59-29.
“We started well but couldn’t keep that same pressure up as subs were made — Ngati Porou ended up getting away from us,” said Mackeys captain Melissa Mackey.
“For a team made up of mostly non-basketballers, we did well just to make it to the final: they were able to mix things up.”
Mackeys will be back in 2016 — the league is on notice: they are a dynamic team, and they’ve got a point to prove, with young players such as Honey Mokomoko, Jett Pohatu and Reremoana Bartlett-Tamatea now in the system.
“We took the game quarter by quarter — we had goals for each quarter, rather than an overall game-plan,” McMenamin said.
“The pace was slow at the start but fast from that point, and it was physical. It was intense.
“Organisationally, too, this was the best season we’ve had in ages: 10 out of 10 on that.”