THE Swan Hill Flyers will face another busy weekend, with both the men’s and women’s teams to host Macedon Ranges and Bacchus Marsh in a double-header this Saturday evening and Sunday.
Having played a double header on the road against Bendigo and Kyneton last weekend, the Flyers will return home with an opportunity to shape their playoff chances.
After securing a 17-point win over Kyneton last Sunday, the men’s team find themselves sitting fourth on the ladder ahead of winnable games against the Rockies (seventh) and Lions (third).
Coming off the back of a gruelling schedule last weekend, men’s coach Hugh Broad and his team have prioritised recovery this week ahead two very different encounters against Macedon and Bacchus Marsh.
“We’ll have the same squad as last week with just four on the bench, which is a bit lower than any other team in the competition,” Broad said.
“If you look at both teams (Macedon Ranges and Bacchus Marsh) they have at least 11 players to choose from every week so it will be another big weekend against two very different teams.
“Looking at their stats, Macedon doesn’t shoot a lot of three pointers and seems to score a lot of two pointers, so we can expect them to attack the ring, which means our bigger bodies will need to do a lot of work.
“Bacchus Marsh on the other hand is a three-point team, they have a lot of three-point shooters and don’t score many free throws, which tells me they shoot a lot from the perimeter.
“We’ll have to play two completely different game styles and we’ll need to take what happened against Bendigo last weekend, where they shot a lot of three pointers on us and try to change a few things around with our defence.
“Last weekend against Bendigo was a great example of us changing our game plan mid-game and fixing our defence on the run and it could very well be the same this weekend.
“They are two very different teams, which will require two different types of offensive emphasis from us across both games.”
Although Swan Hill will have a distinct emphasis on the defensive side of the game, there are no such issues with their offence, with Broad (63 points) and Lachlan Somerville (57 points) the top two scorers in the CBL North West division.
With Lachlan Gardner (43 points) and Matthew Gardner (35 points) also among the competition’s leading scorers, Broad is confident the Flyers attacking game is good shape.
“We don’t want to spend too much time looking at things that aren’t working, otherwise we don’t get to enjoy the things that are going right and that’s definitely our offence,” Broad said.
“We shoot a winning score most weeks, but it’s our defence that has been letting us down.
“Offensively, I’m pretty confident that we can enjoy the way that it looks and the way that we play, but defensively is where we spend a lot of time talking in our time outs and our quarter breaks.
“We’ll just keep doing what we’re doing on offence, but defensively, especially this weekend, two different styles will need to be played and we’ll need to adjust very quickly.”
Swan Hill’s women’s team will also be in action this weekend, with the young Flyers chasing their first win of the season.
Although they will take on the unbeaten Bacchus Marsh on Sunday, it will be against Macedon Ranges on Saturday afternoon where they will have a strong chance of breaking through for their first win, with both the Flyers and Rockies having suffered losses to Kyneton last weekend.
While defence may be a problem for Swan Hill’s men’s team, that’s far from the case for the women’s Flyers, who have been resolute on transition despite being undersized in their three games so far this season.
Tamara Weiss missed last weekend’s double header and will be a chance to return and add some experience and scoring power to the Flyers line-up alongside Scarlet Grey (34 points), Shaylea Kerr (33 points) and Karla Allen (25 points).
The Swan Hill Flyers will host Macedon Ranges on Saturday afternoon, with tip off at 4pm in the women’s match, with their fixture against Bacchus Marsh on Sunday to get underway at 11am at the Swan Hill Stadium.
