FOR the Albury-Wodonga Lady Bandits, there’s never an easy round of SEABL matches — and this weekend is certainly no exception.
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The Border club plays host to the young tyros of Basketball Australia’s Centre of Excellence tonight before backing up tomorrow with a road trip to Brisbane to take on the defending champion Lady Spartans.
Coming off a 97-45 thrashing at the hands of the Hobart Lady Chargers last weekend, Albury-Wodonga faces an uphill battle to record its second win of the season but coach Michael Brookens was optimistic in his expectations.
“We need to split the weekend, at a minimum,” Brookens said.
“I think we can do that if we stick to the gameplan.
“But we have to be mentally prepared to play the full 40 minutes in both games.
“The focus has been on making sure we’re all on the same page, everyone understands what is expected.
“The effort is there physically but we’re not paying enough attention to detail sometimes.
“But at training this week, they stopped and looked, took some ownership of what they’re doing and that was very pleasing to see.”
The Centre of Excellence will head to the Border with a 4-2 record and a two-game losing streak of its own but Brookens was well aware of the challenge awaiting tonight.
With WNBL players the calibre of Katie-Rae Ebzery, Lauren Scherf and Elyse Penaluna, Brookens said the Lady Bandits would need to make the game a physical one.
“It’s the cream of the crop of young Australian talent,” Brookens said.
“A lot of them will look to be future Olympians so I expect them to be seriously competitive and execute well.
“We need to make the game physically tough for them, bump them, make them uncomfortable.
“It should be a good contest, they match up pretty well with us.”
Tip-off at the Lauren Jackson Sports Centre tonight is 7.30pm.