Good write up. Probably the best 1 game write up I have read on HoopsSA

West vs North
At Port Adelaide

Form
West
Won 32 v Eastern at Adelaide Hills rec centre
Won 36 v Norwood at Port Adelaide
Won 28 v South at Marion
Won 51 v Centrals at Starplex

North
Won 19 v Woodville at Hillcrest
Loss 7 v Sturt at Pasadena
Won 26 v Forestville at Hillcrest
Won 20 v Eastern at Hillcrest

Possible starting 5
West
Trudy Holland
Kate Jenner
Sam Woosnam
Lisa Coleman
Nikita-Lee martin

North
Jamie-lee Peris
Tania Dhu
Bec Lock
Jo Hill
Ali Trewartha

West have shown over the last 4 rounds that they are the favourites for the title. However this match may prove tougher than the first four rounds. Alot will come down to the team that can dominate in the paint and on the boards.
The benches of the two teams may be the deciding factor in this game, will be a good test for both to stand up when called upon.
On form it is hard to go past west, but north has been quite impressive aswell. Except for a slip at sturt, which surprised most they have hardly looked in danger.

Key Players
West
Sam Woosnam. West Look a different team when she is on the court. She needs to show her presence right from the start and get into Norths mind. When she plays well west is very hard to beat

Trudy Holland. Will she step up against a top team, she has done it in the matches against the weaker teams, but cvan she against tougher opposition. Good test and may affect the outcome.

North
Jamie-lee Peris. Norths avenue to dominate the boards, averaging just under 16 rebounds a match. is also putting points on the board.

Jo Hill. Arguably one of the best players in the league. She must play well for North to be in with a shot.

West by 7

I see it the other way Southern by 18, to tough for the Flames.

West will win by a bit more, not sure if Peris is playing tonight.


Great Write up Fern

Norwood won by 2 after double overtime
What a nailbitter that was, match had everything

West By 8

Match certainly did have everything turnover after turnover very poor skills.

Dont think ill have time to write up the 2 for tonight. Just been called into work, and wont finish till an hour before tipoff.

As for the match, looking through the stats it shows how close it was, and that southern probably should have won if not for a lack of accurate shooting in the overtime periods.

Also why foul with seconds remaining when the other team must make a basket to either win or send to overtime? it just gives them a second chance

Obviously you dont have a job, a job comes before doing write ups. i have time right now to write it up, but im not going to because no one will read it before the matches. So what point is there.

Next time you do it, it isn't an easy thing to do properly, with detail. Oh and dont hide behind a anon tag and have a go at other people.

Going through the matches tonight.

South will beat Eastern comfortably, Truslove and Carpenter will be too big and dominate.

Sturt will also comfortably beat Woodville. Ursula Richards is a huge loss to Woodvilles team and will not be able to stay with Sturt

Woodville just dropped to the sabres by 8 in the end.

Marino played

Eastern beat South 64 / 61 pts


South without truslove

Like the name, just got back from Pasadena.

Woodville played very well, team played and showed some promise. Good group of youth that could bode well in future years.

Sturt however only won because of marino, she played outstanding. Sturt seem to lack the depth of the top teams and with the big losses last season it shows.

Cant comment on the other game as i haven't seen the replay yet. But the result shows how much truslove gives to South.

Great game from Crockford - extremely scrappy game from most. Truslove did not play.
Very close. Great D from South by a couple of players. Crockford injured - probably long term

I don't think Sturt won because of Marino...in fact, they probably nearly lost it because of her. Basketball is a team game and I hardly think Marino played a team game last night. It's easy to score 24 points when you have the ball in your hands for the majority of the game!!

sorry meant to say great D by Eastern - apologies

I would say the Womens Cabl has almost sorted itself in to contenders and pretenders.

In order
Contenders:
West
Daylight



North
Forestville
Norwood

The tweeners are southern/South


Pretenders:
Sturt
Eastern
Woodville
Centrals

Brenton Johnston early Coach of the year

Jo Hill early Halls Medal

Brenton Johnson coach of the year but he coaches a team of pretenders?? Put Southern in that group as well.

Crockford was pulled down in a dirty play, legged by a lousey defender and injured in the play. I thought it was a disgraceful display of unsportsmanlike behaviour and a black mark on the game.

An Eastern player 'legged' Taya (??) HA! What drugs are you on? That is so far from the truth it is not funny! I think what was more concerning was the fact that neither South coach even went over to Taya to check on her when she was screaming in pain. Apart from the South team manager, it was Eastern people out the crowd trying to help her. I'm sure if it had been on of Glenn's favourites, he would have been over there in a jiffy.
Oh and I also love it how Eastern are still rated 'pretenders' when they have knocked off two teams (Southern and South) that no one even rated them a chance against.
I hope Glenn left feeling like the moron he is for letting Robertsen go.
Anyone can beat anyone in the women's comp this season. My money's on West for the flag, but if Norwood end up scraping through to the finals and win it merely because the Lightning assistant is their coach and is therefore reaping the rewards of poaching players, then that will be very disappointing. I'm not fussed who wins it, I just hope that Norwood doesn't!

Are you new on the scene sps??

West Adelaide have had more lightning and ex lightning players than any other team for the last 5 years!!!

Lets hope they win the flag and Norwood doesn't get in the finals. On that basis alone...


Sour puss?

Here here - just leave the girl out there screaming on the court and throw your hands up in the air -shame on south Coaches - yes SPS is correct. Actually her bone is cracked and pulled away from the AC so a bit more serious than a dislocated knee. thanks to the eastern people who did the right thing.

Daybugs - wake up and smell the roses -what are you on

"West Adelaide have had more lightning and ex lightning players than any other team for the last 5 years!!!"

and who would that be? - Don't Norwood have 3 lightning players this season, plus the Coach Lightning Players for West are Sam & Trudy Holland, who only played for Lightning at the end of the season. Oh Martin but she was Sydney and didn't play many minutes.

Jenner, Woosnam, Mahoney, King , Seward, Smith, Holland, Truslove, Lamshed, Cooper.


That enough??? Since 2005???

Daybugs, you are a moron. There have been a handful of clubs in the ABL in the past five years you could say the same about re Lightning players. It's not the fact Norwood has three current Lightning players, rather the way they recruited them - Pritchard poaching players at Lightning practices etc. There's ways and means to go about things. Anyhoo, as I understand, Foley is having ankle surgery, so without her, they won't even get a sniff of the flag - enough said.

Are you a player who didn't get recruited?

Or just an axe to grind?

LOL, yeah you've got it daybugs, I was gagging to get recruited by Norwood...my dream team. Moron.

I cant see any of the teams getting past west, but I am a moron.

Come on, daybugs, tell us the truth, you were dropped on your head as a small child, weren't you?

I agree, the game saturday was almost lost by Marino's selfish game. if she passed the ball on maybe Sturt could get some movement in offence. they will struggle if she does not pull her finger out and play some team basketball. it shows she cannot win (as good a player as she is) it by herself, she tried and almost lost to Woodville!

Is one of the Norwood-Lightning players Amanda Williams? Strange that in one argument she's not even good enough for the Lightning, but in another she's a core example of the horrific trade of senior poaching?

And are the other two Duke and Foley? That is, Duke who is from interstate and has only played a couple of seasons elsewhere for the Eagles.

And Foley, also from interstate, who has only ever played in our ABL for Norwood from what I can tell.

Is that seriously what's being bitched about here?

Apologies, Isaac, that this seems so trivial. I mean, it is the women's comp after all, how dare we be so trivial. If only we were talking about the possibility of Schenscher playing two games for Eastern and how that may disrupt North or the likes from making the finals, that would be far more interesting. Trust me, I can think of 675646468767654 more trivial things that have been discussed on this website.
I think the core of the matter is that there is obvious poaching of local players going on within the Lightning, therefore you have half the comp that is strong with Lightning players, and half the comp that struggles without Lightning players. Surely a more even comp would only be a good thing for basketball in SA.

A more even competition is a specific issue. You're making allegations against a coach, put in place to get wins for their club not feed the poor.

And don't make this about men vs women - I purposefully deleted a paragraph about the men's league (Ninnis and Flynn create strong ties between Sturt and the 36ers and the Sabres have just one 36ers rep in the team) so it wouldn't become a distraction but that obviously wasn't enough.

Where are the examples of "obvious poaching of local players"? As I said, neither Duke or Foley are "local players". Is your beef with Williams? Isn't where she plays a personal decision and ultimately the final choice here? For all I know, she lives nearer the CBD and driving to Mt Barker to suit for Eastern is a PITA. When you're presumably getting paid petrol money, I think accessibility would factor into your decisions.

Have you suggested to her, or other such examples of local poaching, that they play for another club to "even up" the league?

Unless you have those struggling clubs paying up to get marquee players (and then copping "Think of the juniors!" as Centrals did last season) or some forced distribution rule (besides the restricted player rules I assume are still in place), what else are you going to do?

Make the discussion about that rather than some emotive brawl disparaging a coach whose job is to recruit and win.

(FWIW, I don't think I've met the coach in question and have no personal reason/bias to defend them.)

Isaac, if you don't think Pritchard is poaching players at Lightning practices etc then your head is more in the clouds than I initially thought. I'm thinking your expertise lies more in posts regarding Rhianna and the Lakers.

sps, while i don't disagree with SOME of your comments, i think you're "playing the man, not the ball".

sps, see Pickle's post. I barely even skimmed that Rhianna topic and that was just to check it for spam so I'm not sure why you've brought that up (again).

I asked you to back up your claim about "obvious poaching of local players" - something which you have failed to do. As I said, only one of the three Lightning players with Norwood is actually anything approaching local, and that Foley was already with Norwood anyway. Not to mention that Duke was "poached" from another strong team as well, rather than someone like Centrals!

Anonymous, no. Read it again - I was talking about Williams. I've already established that neither Duke or Foley are really 'local' players.

Ultimately, the decision on where to play is up to the player. They can turn down money, drive further, deal with poor team support, etc if they choose to, but how many are going to do that? If they don't, go and take it up with them and pitch your vision of an even league.

Thanks for the inspirational words, Isaac - so insightful.

seems most think an uneven comp where four clubs dominate is what SA basketball should be about.

'418, at what level do you chase wins and leave the "for the development of all" mantra behind? Is it at WNBL/NBL level, or does it exist between seniors and the final grades of juniors?

Does enforced equivalence lead to complacency and a lack of true competition and drive?

More competitive games would be good, but is it really that achievable and ideal without the clubs themselves doing more work to get their junior numbers up and keep them in the program?

I don't think the coach is the right target here - that's my main point. The clubs provide coaches with direction (usually employ them to win games) and players make the final decision on where they're going to play. And I can't see clubs saying "You're only allowed to recruit a team subjectively on par with other lower clubs, but then do your best after that" and I can't see players driving miles out of their way, to play with people they don't know, for a team likely to get smacked each week, for a few bucks.

You talk of restrictions which exist, and cap enforcement which will always be a struggle - if the NBL can't enforce one, how can the local league?

sps
"There have been a handful of clubs in the ABL in the past five years you could say the same about re Lightning players."

Certainly NOT at Norwood.

Can you name just one club who has had as many player as westies??

restrictions on how many games a WNBL player has to play before taking part in finals would stop it from being a circus.

Well "this thread" - Crockford serious injury out for the season