ONCE Bathurst Goldminers let a visiting Illawarra Hawks side get away from them early on in Saturday night’s opening Waratah Youth League men’s match the hosts never caught up.
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Hawks won the match 94-74 at Bathurst Indoor Sports Stadium, seizing the momentum early and never allowing the Goldminers back in front.
Goldminers knew the Hawks were one of the early competition favourites going into the game and the home side matched them well on the defensive end throughout the game.
However, it was missed baskets that took Bathurst out of the opening quarter and a classy outfit such as Illawarra weren’t going to let the Goldminers get away with that.
Goldminers’ assistant coach Ben Slater said his side can learn plenty of lessons from their sluggish start.
“By the end of that first quarter we were down by 14 or 15. It was a very slow start and we just didn’t come into that match ready to go,” he said.
“Our offence was lacking but the defensive end held their own.
“Illawarra are definitely going to be one of the top sides in the competition. We knew that going into the game, but we were just too slow at the start.”
Without Will Cranston-Lown’s crucial 19-point haul at half-time the 50-37 score could have been even more heavily in Illawarra’s favour.
Goldminers weren’t without their glowing moments in offence – an encouraging sign for a team who haven’t had a lengthy pre-season in training.
“We had our runs where we’d bring it back to maybe four or five points. It was a real rollercoaster of a game at times,” Slater said.
“After that first quarter we started to relax a bit and started playing to our strength, which is turning defence into offence.
“Ozzie [head coach Andrew Osborne] said, coming into this season, that offence was never going to be our problem. We’ve got a lot of ways we can score, so to see the defensive end looking good early on is a good sign.
“When we relaxed and started moving the ball around we found the points. We’ve only had the three or four training sessions together so they did a good job.”
Goldminers will look to turn things around next Saturday when they travel to face the Macarthur Heat.
The match will kick start a lengthy run of away matches for the Goldminers.
Their next match for Goldminers at the Bathurst Indoor Sports Stadium won’t be until April 28 against the Hawkesbury Jets.
