David Leggat: On threshold of a quiet title

CJ Bruton reacts during the Breakers game three win over the Wildcats. Photo / Getty Images

Amazing what a bit of transtasman success can do for a sport, or more specifically its athletes.

Take the Breakers, who tomorrow will find out the identity of their opponents in next week's Australian National Basketball League best-of-three finals. There's a gripe coming on that too, in a moment.

But praise where it's due and the Breakers, who romped through the regular season, then found their bearings in time to see off the Perth Wildcats in the semifinals, deserve it.

Until recently, I'd wager only true basketball heads would have known who Kevin Braswell, Gary Wilkinson, Alex Pledger and Thomas Abercrombie are. Kirk Penney, Paul Henare, Dillon Boucher and CJ Bruton? A different story.

But this is what success, time in the spotlight - especially across an Australasian competition - will do.

The Breakers have their critics. Depending on who you listen to, coach Andrej Lemanis isn't much chop, the style of play is all wrong, and they're three-point showponies lacking grunt in the tight stuff, who were sure to be found out when the time came to play without a regular-season safety net.

This is not about to become an in-depth dissertation of the Breakers. But having been hopeless in game one against Perth at home, they showed grit and smarts to win a tight contest in Western Australia, which is tough-to-win territory, before romping away in a blood-and-guts contest on the North Shore on Wednesday night.

No New Zealand sports team has won an Australasian competition.

The Warriors, in their 17th NRL season, have made the grant final once, in 2002, the playoffs six times, three in the last four years.

As for the various soccer incarnations, the Football Kingz and Knights got nowhere, while the Phoenix have been respectably good. In four A-League seasons, they have made the playoffs twice.

The Breakers will play either the Cairns Taipans or the Townsville Crocs on the North Shore next Wednesday night, away on Sunday and the decider, if needed, at home five days later.

What's with three games spread over 10 days, assuming the decider is required? Surely keeping momentum and interest going, is the smarter move. Four days to rest and travel for one game at this stage of the season is an unnecessary stretch. Perhaps the God television has spoken.

But it wouldn't matter much if you played all three in one day or 10, it won't make any difference to the size of the dent a Breakers title would make on the Australian eastern seaboard media: zilch.

There were no Sydney or Melbourne teams in the playoffs, so they wouldn't care about a Taipans or Crocs title anyway.

On occasion, the Breakers have appeared prickly to criticism this season. Is this simply down to thin skin, or more a case of a sports team not being used to getting as much attention, good or bad, as they have for the last few weeks?

The more accustomed to copping flak, or receiving hefty praise, the more relaxed you should become. And the better you perform, the less criticism should matter.

A 22-6 regular season win-loss record is impressive, they are worthy finalists. All that remains is to complete the job. That's always the most eloquent answer for the doubters.