Warriors back, but…

It may not have been the dream revival of Wangaratta’s Country Basketball League program, but there is enough talent on the list to indicate they’re heading in the right direction. Playing in their first CBL match for three years, Wangaratta Warriors headed across to Echuca to take on the Pirates on Saturday. It was a challenging night for the men, who were defeated 48-76. After sitting the first two rounds of the competition out with the byes, the Warriors were slow out of the blocks, trailing by 10 points at the first break, before the Pirates plundered 21 points to 14 in the second to have the Warriors reeling 21-38 at the half. To their credit, Wangaratta were working well defensively, stealing and counterattacking, but their shooting left a lot to be desired. The fourth quarter was by far their best, only outscored by two points, but by that point, the damage had been done. Coach Adam Maher said with a new team of young players largely inexperienced at CBL level, some teething issues were natural. “It is disappointing, but you’ve got to take the positives out of it,” he said. “We couldn’t quite piece it together as well as what we would’ve liked, but it’s given us a look at where we’re at now in a live game situation, and we know what we can go back and have a look at. “If we probably had shot another 20-30 per cent better, we would’ve been another 15-20 points better off and been a little bit closer – we may not have won it, but we certainly would’ve been closer. “There were some guys that certainly stepped up and did the one per cent stuff really well some of the time – we’ve got to get some consistency going – but they showed the promise that they can do that, they showed they were able to do it, but they need to be able to play 100 per cent of the gametime.” No Warrior put up more than 10 points for the match, but Maher said it was the first match in a long and ongoing process to make Wangaratta competitive in the CBL once again. “The positives are it’s fantastic we’ve got a CBL team back, it’s fantastic we’ve got these kids who are able to come out of junior basketball into the senior pathways, but it’s going to be a building process,” he said. “I don’t expect that we’re going to be up the top of the leaderboard this year, but it’s about where we’re going to be over the next one, two, three years. “As CBL gets back on the table at Wangaratta, we’re going to have more players want to get into the program, and if I look at other sides, they’ve got a mix of senior players with a few junior players, whereas we’re the other way with almost all junior players, we haven’t got anyone over 25.” Young guns step up in debut women’s CBL hitout Meanwhile, the women’s CBL side also suffered a loss in their first match, going down 41-73. Wangaratta’s defence simply let through too many shots, and were chasing Echuca after the first quarter, with more than a few players in foul trouble. Coach Julie Richardson said there were lessons aplenty from their first taste of the top level. “It was our first game in the season, so it was a big learning curve for many of us,” she said. “Many of the girls hadn’t played CBL before, so they were getting used to the intensity of the game. “We only had eight of our players, with a couple of our stronger experienced players not available, so we had quite a junior, inexperienced team, but I was really proud of their efforts, they never gave up.” “We were slow to start, we got into some foul trouble, but there’s lots of great learning coming from that game.”

Warriors back, but…

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Major investigation underway after Helen Haines struck outside Wangaratta office

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Wounded ‘Pies take Tigers to the final over

Wangaratta Chronicle, Friday, 16 October, 2026