Monster weekend for Warriors

Weekends don’t get much bigger than this one for the Wangaratta Warriors men’s CBL side, with a mammoth road trip and a showdown with arguably the best in the competition on the cards across Saturday and Sunday. In round six of the North East Men conference season, the Warriors hit the road to take on Swan Hill Flyers in Swan hill on Saturday night, before coming back and hosting ladder leaders Wallan Panthers on Sunday afternoon. The Warriors are up and about after winning their first match of the season last weekend, a nail-biting seven-point result against local rivals Myrtleford, which coach Adam Maher said will build their confidence. “They’ve got to be confident,” he said. “I can only do so much, it’s got to be them as a team – I can help them off the court and tell them what I see, but evidently at the end of the day it’s actually those guys on the court having confidence in each other. “I think that’s the big thing – I know you’re going to do the job if I get you the ball, or if I do this, you’re going to do the other end of it. “Having the confidence in themselves, I reinforce that all the time at training – if one guy’s down, you’ve got to get around him and make sure he gets up, because if one guy’s failing, we’re all failing. “They all seem to be hanging together and enjoying their basketball, and once you start to enjoy your basketball, you’re going to produce good things.” The Warriors are no strangers to the mass of travel CBL requires, having already played Echuca Pirates in Echuca back in round three, but the Swan Hill odyssey looms as an almost eight-hour round-trip on Saturday. Bizarrely, both Swan Hill and Echuca are included in the North East Men’s CBL conference, when it could be reasonably argued they are not, in fact, in the North East of the state – regardless, the Swan Hill trip is a go. Following the Swan Hill match, the Warriors are at home on Sunday afternoon to the undefeated Wallan Panthers. Maher said it was going to be a difficult weekend. “We’ve got some out on Saturday night but they’ve back on Sunday, but it’s definitely going to be a challenge, and the boys are really going to have to be in the right headspace, make sure they can look after themselves,” he said. “It’s a hard road trip, most teams are having these road trips where you turn around and do this. “The biggest thing the boys are going to have to be ready for is just that mental drain that they’ll get sitting in a car or bus waiting to play, then turning around, getting back late and doing it all again. “Being all together is really good, they enjoy that, and that’s where your teambuilding starts. “It’ll be a difficult and challenging weekend, but one the boys will rise to. “If they play like they did on Saturday, we’re not out of contention of even giving Wallan a red-hot go.” The Warriors’ are in action at Swan Hill Basketball Stadium from 7pm on Saturday, and at Wangaratta Indoor Sports and Aquatic Centre against Wallan Panthers from 2pm on Sunday.

Monster weekend for Warriors

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