I'm sure there will be those who may respond to this negatively: before you do, please think about what you contribute. If what you are contributing is your opinion, be sure to label it as such (i.e., "I think that..."). If you have criticism, make it constructive. If you have specific complaints, please try addressing the club privately.

Every club in this state is part of the wider basketball community and as much as competition/disputes between and within clubs will never cease, I think we all want to see every club improve, bounce back, compete, succeed, and grow the sport as a whole. Sniping won't really achieve that -- if you have a point, please provide it fairly and legally!

If you hadn't noticed Isaac I started by saying "My opinion as a Senior player is only one of my own..."
I have no criticism or complaints in my post. I have no way "sniped" in anyway and in what way haven't I done it fairly and Legally??? I'm not sure what post you read Isacc but it seems you have taken personal offense to it.

Panther you don't sound like any senior player i know.

Panther, you dork! :P

I said "I'm sure there will be those who may respond to this negatively" -- i.e., people who respond to your post.

There was nothing wrong with what you've written. Sorry for the confusion!

Panther,

Well said. We as a state need all our clubs to be competitive. It is good to hear that there is support from within the club for the club.

Bazzel,

Panther probably doesn't sound like any senior player you know because you probably don't know every senior player!

Isaac,

I must pull you up on your second post. You said if it is only an opinion please state so therefore you should have said: "Panther, In my opinion you are a Dork", or shape the criticism in a constructive manner such as "Panther, you may lack a little on the intelligence front but there is plenty of scope for improvement"

Obviously my day at the office is suffering from the long weekend. Once again, in all seriousness, Panther well done in speaking out in support of your club.

??? - don't worry, I think you're a dork too.

Good Luck Panther and South. It can only be good for basketball if you guys get back on track.

Feel free to bring some of your coaches to our Level 0 cource next weekend if you think that will help with their development.

Cheers

Good to see that you are behind your club Panther. But it takes more than words to develop a club in this day and age.

What exactly has changed since last season, has the junior coaching director been given some direction or some help. Have you found somebody to replace Deana in the Womens group, and hwo many lpayers have left in the last couple of seasons.

I also hope that South show some imporvement as a club, butit needs a number of people to get involved to help out.

GO Panther GO!!!

Enthusiasm is contagious,so keep the Positives UP!! I honestly hope your Club catches the bug, virus the lot of this leading attitude!

Forget the negative pervayers of doom, breed success. Our whole basketball community needs all clubs strong, eager and enthusiastic!

Good Luck!

I agree. All the tools that have been putting up negative stuff about South need to have a good hard look at themselves. What does it achieve? Only damages a club and therefore all our basketball competition.

Every club stands for something. Every club is different either because of the area they are based in, because of their history or plan for the future and the people involved. Take some of the Footy mentality, histoy, exciting plans, tradition, individual club culture and take pride in it.

Support your club's culture and what they stand for or get out and get into a club whose of these factors you want to support. Clubs maintain your individuality and take pride in it to make the basketball landscape diversified, competitive and interesting.

Fat Elvis, it's quite obvious it takes more than words to develop a club but it's words that can inspire people and to reinstall faith to those supporters who are waivering. But it's definitely the actions from everyone that's going to restore the club.
There are people involved in the club who are willing to do that and i'm sure we'll see some changes over the next couple of years that will help the club achieve greatness once again.
It's pretty hard to replace someone like Deanna at the club and i'm sure Kaye-lee is taking steps to fill the spot as best she can. Deanna left to try her hand in Europe and the Club wishes her all the best. At the South we encourage our players to be the best player they can be, that sometimes hurts the club but we try to do what's right by the player.
How many players have left the club? Are you talking senior men/women or juniors? On the Senior level, not that many. Juniors, unsure but we'll be trying to keep all the ones we have as well as encourage kids from other clubs to come and try out with South.
Isaac I apologise the way your message read it seemed you were responding to my post not directing it to people who will respond to my post. Maybe after your first sentence you should have started "before you do..." with a capital.
Bazzel, obviously your not in the senior program, if you are ask the team at training tomorrow night and i'll be happy to answer.
And ??? you don't even know how to spell your name so how can you criticise my intelligence?

Oh and Liam...GO THE POWER!!!
What's up buddy!

Panther you clearly have no idea about the junior program, which most of the negatively on this forum re south has been about.You say "WE'LL be trying to keep all the ones we have" - how exactly are YOU involved in that to comment and how do you intend to keep these players?

AND - "as well as encourage kids from other clubs to come and try out with South" - Sounds like poaching to me! (In my opinion ofcourse!!!)

Instead of trying to make people happy to stay or poach players from other clubs, perhaps some coach education and player development are in order. South has lost a number of players over the last couple of years and are now down to 44 junior teams, whereas Forestville, Sturt and Southern now all have over 50 teams for the coming season.

"IMO" if something is going to be done it will need to happen quickly otherwise it might lead to a further decrease in players which will have an overall affect on the club in the future.

If that's what you want to call it!
I've seen it happening for my whole basketball career so why are you suprised? I'm not involved directly in the junior program but I know a good junior program leads to a successful senior team which overall leads to a successful club. I've spoken to people on the committee and involved in junior coaching and the club are doing their best to put the right people in place to improve the junior program.
To say that the only criticism is directed to the junior program...obviously that's all YOUR reading in this forum, there is plenty about the club, the senior teams and the committee which if you've got time you could read. Obviously it's only the junior program that your interested in and it's good to see your getting fired up about, it's extremly important to the club.

Fat Elvis, if you want to talk about poaching you've brought up to of the biggest hunters in the industry. Two of the most financial clubs in the state. Nothing against them as they've done the right things to get their clubs that way and it's going to take a better effort for other clubs to keep up with them.
As for Southern, you just had two clubs merge! What did you expect???
And like i said there will be changes and already have been changes at the club.

I said MOST.

Perhaps you should actually read the responses people make before replying.

Panther, your talking the talk but your not walking the walk.

How are you going to help the club Panther?
Set a few picks at practice? buy a donut at the canteen?

"they're people willing to do that and I'm sure we will see some changes"
- but not by you Panther.

By deeds not words.

Not to mention a lot of the negative responses towards the committee have been in relation to the junior program.

Kansas Kansas Kansas, the things i'm personally doing have got nothing to do with things on the court, geez we only just started training again! And as for buying a donut at the canteen...not me personally but i'm sure there's a couple of guys on my team who'll scoff a couple!
You have no idea about who I am and my involvement with the club so how about you keep your empty little words to yourself!

Panther,
Kudos for your inspired post.
As a little side question, can you tell me, as it stands right now, who will remain in the mens senior squad at South and if there is any truth to rumours surrounding any recruits?

There are 2 of specific interest. One from West Adelaide and another from Mt. Gambier. Are these particular guys going to be at training this week?

I think what Kansas was refering to was you have no involvement with the Juniors.

LemonJuiceinmyEye, the majority of the players are staying, the only casualty at the moment is Lucas who is going overseas. JB is returning from Mount Gambier, there may be two more recruits who are coming from the Mount and there are also two players who are interested in playing for South who are from out West. We may not be able to accomadate everybody and that includes current players. We have had a lot of interest from starting five players from other clubs who have been impressed with the direction the clubs heading so if the clubs first options don't work out the club still have other options.
We have already had two of the above mentioned players train with us. So i'm assuming they'll be there again next training.

Panther,

I should refrain from adding further levity to this subject as my earlier post lost something between my head and my fingers as I in no way intended to have a go at you. I'm with you on this issue.

Alf, Kansas City Mack, Fat Elvis,

At least Panther took the time out to generate a new thread and is interested/concerned about the well being of the club. So what if he doesn't have all the answers; if it were that easy it would have already been fixed. I challenge you to commit to one action, however small that will make some improvement to the club during 2005. If you can't think of anything don't run down others. Little things will lead to bigger and better things but any jouney begins with the first step.

Panther has taken the first step in airing his support for the club. I am sure he will find ways to add to the club through other actions. Juniors always appreciate contact with the senior players and I am sure there are numerous opportunities there.

Alf if you hadn't noticed Kansa said, how are you going to help the "club"? Club is an overview of all the teams...and like I said, unless he know's who i am exactly, how would he know what level of involvement I have with the club???

Sorry ??? thought you were having a go, appreciate and applaud your post...

There is more to a club then its senior program.

You've said youself you have no involvement with juniors but yet are preaching to us about these great changes that are going to come about. Actions speak louder than words.

Just cuz you play doesnt mean your making the club better.

From the start i've said a club rely's on it's juniors to survive, what haven't you read here Alf? Just because I don't have any direct involvement with juniors doesn't mean i'm not having an influence on what goes on behind the scenes. And if you gave it oh maybe more than five minutes from when i wrote my first post maybe you'll see some changes, if you open up your eyes wide enough! Things are NOT going to happen overnight when trying to get a great club back on track how about you stop whingeing about how bad the junior program and perhaps contribute your time to "helping" the club! I coached a junior team at South once when I was younger and it's people like you who made me give it away. People who have so much time to sit there and quickly bag others yet do nothing to help out. Let me guess, when the club and probably your child's team were winning grand finals we couldn't hear you cheering...

Alf, I'm not sure what saying that achieves? When the original poster used the word "we" they were speaking of the club collectively. I didn't see them making outrageous claims as to their own contribution and I don't see the point in trying to drag someone down only for trying to bring some positive views to the public about their club.

So what are these changes to the junior program?

I've played and coached and south so I really have no idea of what your talking about.

Isaac:

"arguing on the internet??"

I actually got permission from the author of that article to reword it and remove any offensive images.

Will do it up and send it to on when I get time.

Which part didn't you get Alf?
The club have got on board some experienced and extremely successful new coaches on board while also trying to get some fresh faces involved.
We are looking at getting someone else to help with Junior development and will be helping out the coaches with any skills development.
There are a lot of things the club is doing to change the current state it's in and it's good to see such great support from the majority of supporters. If your one of the minority it really seems like no great loss especially with the constant negativity you bring to the club.

Panther what team did you coach and how long ago

Under 16's Div 1 and about 5 years ago.

That was Brett Parnell's Dad

Or Grant Smith, Al Green, Rick none of these coaches are senior players i think someone is telling fibs

JB had a brief stint

Yeah S Kemp your right it is JB it all makes sence except for his post that said "Go the Power" I thought he was Essendon

Are you kiddin me? Essendon??? You know you could've just asked!

Running off my mouth??? I was just letting the Panther fans rest easy as next season the club will be back in business!

What can you tell us about the squad JB who is looking good for the break who is looking worse and how are you gonna win(?) more than four games next year

(Mod: added "win" -- I assume that's what you meant?)

I can't give too much away, but we're looking at few new guys, we've currently got about 5 in mind, 3 of which would be starting five players. Other than that everyone else is returning next season. Everyone is looking in good health, especially the big fella Truck. He's come back fresh and ready to go from a holiday and is looking to get some fitness behind him. He's been looking good at training. Other than that we've got a couple of young guys in Matt Davies, Tom Mckenzie and Steve Williams that are shaping up to be real contributors in the team and there's always the "old" heads that are there.
That's how we're planning on winning more than 4 games!!! I don't give out hot tips too often so when I do get on em but you wanna jump on board the Panther wagon before everyone else does!!!

you've convinced I'm jumping ship

That's what i'm talkin about!!!

With the new recruiting rule, South would only be allowed to recruit 2 new players (players who have never played for South before). So, JB wouldn't count as a recruit, which means they can recruit 2 players, as well as JB. So, if they are speaking to 3 players, and JB isn't one of them, then they'd better understand the new rule before they sign all 3 of them.

For those of you who don't know, I'm pretty sure that the clubs have introduced a new recruiting rule. Teams that finished 1-4 last season (Eastern, Woodville, North & Sturt) can only recruit ONE new, non-ex player for the upcoming season. Teams that finished 5-8 (Southern, Forestville, Norwood & South) can recruit TWO new non-ex players. Teams that finished 9-10 (West & Centrals) can recruit THREE new non-ex players.

For example, Wilkey going back to Centrals doesn't count as a recruit so thats fine (actually, Wilkey would be cleared to play for a number of clubs).
However, South can't recruit, for example, Reggie, Jason Williams, and Jason Dix for next season because, as none of them are ex-South players, they would only be allowed two of them.

Wonderful - clubs are now encouraged to do all their recruiting at junior level. By the time these players reach senior level, there'll be less chance of losing them than ever before.

Shouldn't we be restricting club movement at junior level, rather than senior level, thus encouraging clubs to expend effort in developing junior players rather than recruiting them?

That makes too much sense for BASA Paul

I hear what you're saying, Hoopin, but people often forget that BASA IS the clubs. Most of these decisions are made by club delegates or presidents, so we can't simply blame BASA.

Rather than whinging about these types of decisions (as I just did!), maybe we should lobby our committees, to find out which clubs support them, and why.

Agreed, What would happen if a situation like what almost happened at South where you have the majority of players walking out (i do not believe this is happening anymore due to the change of coach) and they are restricted to 2 recruits does this mean they would have to play u/20s or players from Div 3 men?

If this rule has indeed been passed by the clubs then I'm sorry but a monumental mistake has been made. I'll give you 2 examples

1) What about the poor bench player who wants a change of scenery but unfortunately his club of choice has already used there 1 non club person on a gun recruit.

He/She is then forced to go to a club that they may not want to play for i.e say for example I live in the Southern Suburbs and the only clubs willing to accomodate are Centrals and West - poor bench player is screwed

2) Pretend Club X has 1 player go OS, 2 retire, 2 jump ship and another go down with injury (it could all easily happen - I can think of one very close example) WTF are they supposed to do start playing U16s or maybe recruit from interstate

This has got to be the craziest rule ever - I'd like to hear more comment on this please because the ramifications are enormous and cannot have been thought out

Will clubs "throw" games at the year end to get more choices??

Yer I agree, it's a pretty crazy rule and it makes the rebuilding process a long one. It's pretty hard for teams from the bottom of the ladder to recruit as if you can only recruit 3 or 2 new players they are going to have to be pretty good ones to get the team back on track. I would assume this all happen because of the Senior Norwood team and their recruiting efforts over the past couple of years. Not to say that what they did was wrong by all means do what you have to do to put together a decent team but they gained a number of players last season.
And your right in saying it makes it hard for the bench players and that's who I feel sorry for.
To be honest we could probably recruit perhaps 4 starting five calibre players and a couple of bench players but because of the restrictions your limited to only two.
For Deak's sake, one of the recruits we are looking at recruiting is a ex South junior so he'll be ok to slip under the new rule.
And kids, to help out your senior career try to play for as many clubs you can, that will make you an attractive recruit to any team!

And i'm pretty sure Wilkey played his junior career at North didn't he???

Thinking outside the box, let clubs recruit as many as they want from anywhere, however with the salary cap in place make concessions for the number of ex juniors in their ABA squad, say the cap increases by 1,2k or whatever for each of these type of players.

How can the league look at lengthening the season yet not the salary cap???

Panther if you're going to take a punt at Norwood's senior recruiting since they finished bottom, have a look at the names and the only ones who didn't play any senior/junior ball at Norwood would be Christian Bell and Will Foster; Scott Lampshire is still a junior, and Jimbo Jones is from social basketball.

Anonymous, when the season starts i'm all about playing ball!!! But until then, when your club goes from two grand final appearances to second to bottom in a matter of a few years something needs to be done and I wasn't going to simply just rock up on the first day of training like yourself and just hope for the best. If I can help my club get better then i'll do it. Obviously you can't be too good of a player otherwise I would've approached you!

Panther, our family for one will be very pleased to see south get back in form and win some games. we have been associated with South for a few years now and we go to most games (even the away games) We get sick of "fine weather supporters" knocking the team. Next season looks very promising, for a start Kelly is coaching. He coached my son in recent times and we rate him highly. Great to see he has the full support from the team. Last season we often led at 3/4 time and then went down by 10 or less. I think this year with a couple of new players to support the strengths we all ready have will be very exciting. I say look out to the knockers!!!

Anon,

I m i g h t b e a b i t s l o w but can you please explain how JB's ability to hit an outside jump shot has got anything to do with people coming out to support their club in face of all the knockers.

I'm an ex west, NCT and South junior (got around a bit when I was younger!) but you'll only see me in the red, white and blue!
And what do mean am I hitting the outside jumpshot yet??? I've benn hitting it for years, just while no one's around!

Libertine, I didn't take a punt at Norwood at all, I applaud them for they're good recruiting skills.But they have quite a number of players whether ex juniors or not that have joined/returned to the club. Christian, Will, Toby, Keith, Harris (a few years ago), Tonks, to name a few. I didn't even see them play last season so that's just guys I know.

JB, Mobsie, Lomman and Pilkinton are some others recruited, arrived or returned to the Flames in the past couple of yrs.

& Paul Jasniach

The ever revolving door of the Norwood Flames.....

http://www.hoops.com.au/sa/i.cfm/forumlist/672/

No doors. But your point is taken.

No doors...no stadium!

PRINT-FRIENDLY VERSION we very much apreciate your families support and I know exactly who you are. And to stick up for JB I once saw him hit a jump shot about 2 and a half years ago!

I think everyone has underestimated South for years...we have been in most games against the big guns for three quarters and just hit a few hurdles in the last...Kelly is a very fine coach and has learnt from the best South had/has...the players are people who want to play and want to make this club successful again..most have been around when it was successful and therefore understand what they are missing and what it means to a lot of people...if they sign up the big fellah from the mt for the main season along with truck, kent, JB and pilks, as well as all the guards, i don't care who you put them up against, that's a hell of a ferocious front court...hell, no one could stop truck last season...i'm predicting lowest finish 5th and then up...2242...

Yeah TRUCK is a man made legend, i once had him as a coach and though he ran our asses off he was great because he is good and he knows what it takes to be at the top level, and i also think that they will be in the top 3 next year

what yeah did u have him as a coach and in what team PP

dude try to spell correctly before posting next time {menioned?} you think they need Kent or Pilkington?, Truck should have started the entire year last year ahead of Kent{he will this year} and will JB back Pilks will be lucky to see garbage time!

By Slim stating what he did doesn't mean anything. It's one person's opinion and I don't even know who he is. You could probably ask a lot of people about Truck and they would say he's a man made legend! And they could also say he should've started before Simon Kent. What's really got to happen is whoever performs and this depends on the truth behind Simon talking to North and if he decides to stay but whoever is training better and playing better should get to start, full stop!!!
Anonymous, everyone has different opinions on these things, doesn't mean the teams got problems it just means the teams in a great position to have two big guys fighting for the starting position. If they are mature enough about it there should be no problems so what Slim said has no bearing on if the team has problems or not, geez i've always thought I should start!!!

Not in those Boots Mister!!!!

I know you're a patriotic Australian but that's carrying it too far.

New Uniforms for South's ABL side in 2005, any truth that the club is looking to change the Navy and Red parts to Teal & Black???

If they did change the colours it would be a sure thing for the championship!!!

Jirachi, not at all serious, that was just for Panthers' benefit, who happens to be a POWER man.
Couldn't even look at the team if they wore those colours.
I also don't know how ProBall managed to convince the club those Numbers would look good.
The Panther is cleared to play tonight as well, so lookout Norwood he's back.

Great to see south have been working on their Junior Development Program.

Shooting clinics are a very good idea for south :P

Keep up the good work.

What's involved with these clinics

Panther i know u want ur club to suceed, but they have to work on their 16s and 18s better and maybe people will stop leaving the club ecspeciall good players that want to get further, we need better coaches that no how to make players stay in the club

go south

SOUTH ROCK! I DONT CARE WHAT ANYONE SAYS OR THINKS! COZ I LOVE IT!!! IM NOT GONNA CHANGE!!

SOUTHSIDE REPRESENT!!!

#30

nice one wigga G