O’Neill tips team to perform in finals-like pressure

GEELONG Supercats coach Leon O’Neill has described tomorrow’s bumper SEABL clash with Nudawading as “finals like”.

Two games separate the second and third-placed sides, with the Supercats keen to close that gap with an upset win on the road, before facing Kilsyth on Sunday.

O’Neill is well aware of enormity of the task.

“We’ve got Nunawading, who are one game out of first place, and Kilsyth on Sunday, who are nipping at our heels, so we’ve got a really tough draw,” he said.

“It’s a tough four or five weeks coming up. We had a really, really good training session, one of the best we’ve had in weeks.

“We’ll try to cause an upset because anytime Nunawading play at home they’d start favourites, you’d think.”

O’Neill said the Spectres have been a consistently good side for a long time.

“They’re a very experienced team, they have an outstanding point guard in Shane McDonald and an outstanding centre in Simon Conn and they’ve recruited well,” he said.

“They’ve been together for years, so they don’t change a lot of what they’re doing, they just do it very, very well.

“In order to beat them we’re going to have to be very consistent in the way we guard their star players, we’re going to have to try to make them do something they don’t want to do to beat us.

“It’s a good chance for us to test our mettle a little bit and see where we stand.”

O’Neill said his side was aware of how important it was to finish second.

“If we can beat them it will only make it a one loss differ- ence and gives us a chance, when we play them at home in a month’s time, to hopefully turn the tide there again,” he said.

“It’ll be a finals-like atmosphere early in the season. It’s a very important weekend.”

But it will be the second consecutive double-header weekend for the Supercats, a schedule of four games in nine days.

“It’s not ideal but it’s part of the pitfall of playing SEABL basketball, you can’t do anything about it,” he said.

“We’re fairly injury-free, apart from Nick Owusu who we’re uncertain when he’ll come back.

“We’ll take the best team and if we can play our best, I give us a chance.”

THIS WEEK:

Tomorrow, Nunawading v Geelong, women 5.30pm, men 7.30pm, Nunawading Stadium Sunday, Kilsyth v Geelong, men 2pm, Kilsyth Sports Centre