Lessons learned, now for revenge

LADY Supercats coach David Herbert says his side is prepared for whatever minor premier Bendigo throws at it on Saturday night.

The Supercats have played Bendigo twice in the past five weeks and lost both times but have learnt valuable lessons.

In the most recent encounter — an eight-point loss on July 14 — the Braves switched to a zone defence in the third term that saw them outscore the Supercats 30-10 in a match-winning quarter.

But Herbert said his side had learnt from that loss.

“They went to a zone against us and we shot terribly,” he said.

“We’re raring to go if they decide to go that way. We’ve been working on that for a number of weeks and we’ve just got to wait for that moment and, when it comes, we’re ready.

“All our games so far we’ve found little bits and pieces that we’ve had to work on and the result is we’ve come out the other side a better team.

“We couldn’t have had a better lead in to the final having to play Bendigo twice, Kilsyth twice and Melbourne. It’s been a great lead-up and I think we’ve reaped the rewards of losing a couple of games in among that and learning some lessons.”

Herbert labelled last weekend’s elimination final win over Diamond Valley as “pretty special” and believes his side was peaking at the right time of the year.

“I think we found a formula and it’s working,” he said.

“I think we’ve been building in the right way. We’ve just been building intensity, building the effort levels and it showed on Saturday night, we came out ready to go.

“I feel for the last six weeks we’ve been playing like that, we’ve just been patchy at times.”

A big part was the form of import Chelsea Poppens, who shot 16 points from 15 minutes, playing a big role off the bench.

Herbert said Poppens was capable of doing similar on Saturday night.

“I think how we’re using her is ideal, in bursts of three or four minutes,” he said.

“She’s really giving us a lot in terms of rebounding.

“Her experience level will go to another level and we saw that off the bench.”

The Braves could be bolstered by the return of Ashleigh Karaitiana after playing international basketball for the New Zealand Tall Ferns.