Thanks guys, but as I said above I am nowhere near as skilled as my record may misleadingly suggest. If i finsish the season at 60% i would be way stoked.
Wollongong's veterans slap the pig young guns around. Matt Campell plays his best game in along long time 7/10 3s and 28 points. 18/29 3s @ 62% as a team. Tragargh again suggests he may be the real deal with 23 points 7 rebounds. Kavossy Franklin impressive again 25 points 8 assists, most of them early when the game was there to be won.
Props to Hinson who had 4 points and 4 fouls at the half but finished with 24.
Still got verbal diarrhea so I will write up my pick for tomorrow, better out than in.
Caution 1: you wont get rich backing double digit favourites.
Caution 2: "the internet, more crap at your finger tips than on them." Ron Hitler Barassi. The internet told me that Stevens was playing for Wollongong tonight, he didn't. The internet told me Crawford wasn't playing for Perth the other night, he did. There was another one as well the other day that escapes me at the moment. The internet is saying Cortez Groves is out fairly loudly, but can it be trusted?
Melbourne -12 1.5u
An idea I came up with about Souths is that they have significant personality/chemistry issues and need a myers briggs type analist in to sort them out. Heal is the ultimate loudmouth extrovert whereas all the others nearly are introverts.
Cortez Groves - introvert
Jacob Holmes - introvert
Mr Jingles - mild introvert
Horvath, Hill and Burston - introverts.
Heal wants them yelling, trash talking and picking fights but they don't have it in them. Leads to tension, poor teamwork and poor results.
Talk has already turned to Heal's tenure in the position:
South Dragons owner Mark Cowan has backed player-coach Shane Heal despite the NBL club facing a winless start to the season, something that cost previous coach Mark Price his job last season.
The Dragons are 0-3 and could be 0-5 by Sunday night with weekend matches against the unbeaten Melbourne Tigers and Sydney Kings.
The Dragons were 0-5 last year when Cowan fired former NBA legend Price and appointed Heal.
But there is unlikely to be any blood-letting should a similar scenario arise this season, with Cowan saying he believed in what Heal was trying to achieve.
"I've got faith in the process that Shane has got the club going through and it's not how you start, it's how you finish," Cowan said. https://www.theage.com.au/news/Sport/South-Dragons-boss-says-Heal-is-safe/2007/10/12/1191696163443.html
Maybe they will rally similar to Wollongong, but it sounds to me that they are already resigned to being 0-6, with Sydney and Brisbane up after Melbourne:
'Dragons co-captain Jacob Holmes said the players were keen to step up against the Tigers in the Melbourne derby at the State Netball Centre on Saturday night to kick-start their season.
"We're not 0-6 yet and we don't want to get to that stage again," Holmes said.
"If we can get a win, it eases the pressure on everyone, including the coach." '(same article)
Sounds more like resignation than detemination to me.
Even if they do fire up i think the will be outclassed.
With Burston playing like a mong, Horvath has to start at centre and in my opinion he is no where near up to it. As I recall when he was in a force in the league was when he had Simon Dwight arguably the best shot blocker in league history playing centre and he was playing forward. In the tv game v perth he was wetting himself when they gave Rogers the ball in the post and several times gave up panic fouls. If Perth had given Rogers more low post touches he would have fouled out before half time. My feeling is Anstey and/or Mursepp will embarass him again.
With Groves out and Mr Jingles having an ordinairy start to the season, they don't have the quality to match it with Melbourne in the other positions.
The main risk is that Melbourne take the game easy and Souths cover without looking like winning. This is a possibility but I am hoping the cross town rivalry sees Melbourne keep the foot down and given their should be a packed house of Melbourne fans I cant see them taking it easy. I think its quite likely Souths will be throwing up prayer 3s like they did against Perth for most of the game and they wont even get close in the second half unless they hit alot of them.
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