THE Swan Hill Flyers’ CBL North West season will end on Sunday afternoon, with the Flyers to host the Kyneton Tigers in their final match of their 2024 campaigns.
Although there is one round remaining after this weekend, both the men’s and women’s Flyers have the bye, with the clubs senior teams to run out on their home court for the final time on Sunday.
For Swan Hill’s men’s team, the game against Kyneton presents as the perfect opportunity to finish on a high, with the Flyers defeating the Tigers by 17 points in round 2 this season, off the back of beating the previously undefeated Castlemaine Cannons last Sunday.
But with the Flyers still needing one more win to equal last season, men’s coach Hugh Broad told The Guardian he and his team are taking no chances.
“Last weekend was probably the best we’ve had away this season, it was a disappointing loss to Maryborough but to beat Castlemaine, the feeling after that game was just incredible,” Broad said this week.
“We’ve put a lot of work in at training, a lot of shots, a lot of running and to have a win like that will instil a lot of confidence in the team.
“Kyneton haven’t won a game this season, but when we played them last time they pushed us hard right to the end.
“It should be a really competitive match and I’m confident we can get over them if we stick to our game plan and play together.
“(Last) Sunday was a really good example of teamwork, everyone played their role and there wasn’t any superstars, but it will be all about finishing the season on a high in front of a home crowd.
“Finals was the goal for us and although we are going to fall short of that, last year we won four games and so equalling last year’s record is a really big goal now.
“It’s important not just for the boys but also for the association and the CBL program in Swan Hill. It’s important that we continue to get better and I feel like we are a better team than last year, but the standard from the other teams is also higher so we need to continue to improve.”
It will be a similar story for Swan Hill’s women’s team when they take to their home court on Sunday, with continued improvement set to be front of mind for the Flyers after spending their past nine games developing their talented youth.
While Ava Crow will continue to miss with a knee injury, there is expected to be plenty of court time for Shaylea Kerr, Scarlet Grey, Lyla Morton and Kieley Styles, with women’s coach Adam Kerr keen to see the development of his young squad since their 32-point loss to Kyneton at the start of their campaign.
“We’ll approach Sunday’s game the same way we do every weekend, it’s kind of hard to push that expectation of winning, that hasn’t been our focus from the start of the season so we’ll continue to work on our development,” Kerr said.
“For us, it’s about winning contests and not winning games and the more contests we win, whether it’s offensively, defensively, at beginning of the game or end, it’s all about building that competitive edge and then building it into winning quarters and halves.
“Even on the weekend we won two quarters (against Maryborough) and we lost another by a point, but there was one quarter where we got blown out of the water which cost us a win.
“It’s about building those little bits and pieces to build into a whole game. There’s no point expecting Meg (Rooney), Tess (Denham), Tam (Weiss), Karla (Allen) and our more senior players to do that, it’s about implementing that system into our younger players.
“We’re trying to build their competitive edge and make them more consistent so that in two, three or four years time, we have a bunch of 18-19 year olds playing that are hopefully competing at the top of the competition.
“That’s the ultimate goal and if we were to go away from that for one weekend, I’d probably kick myself, so we’ll just continue to go down that path on Sunday.”
The Swan Hill women’s team will kick off the day’s action at the Swan Hill Stadium from 11am against Kyneton, with the men’s match against the Tigers to follow from 1pm.
