SUPERCATS HAVE FINAL IN THEIR SIGHTS
GEELONG Supercats coach Leon O’Neill believes his side is primed to reach the SEABL final after an impressive semifinal win over the Ballarat Miners on Saturday night.
The Supercats continued their dominant defensive work, restricting Ballarat’s scoring power in the 90-65 win, to set up a preliminary final showdown against Hobart Chargers away.
O’Neill said the balance and depth of his squad allowed the Supercats to suffocate the Miners’ offence.
“We’re very fortunate at the moment with the team that we’ve got — a good mixture of old heads, young bodies and we’re able to understand what needs to be done,” O’Neill said.
“The older guys understand what’s needed and the younger guys are listening.
“We were able to choke their offence and not allow them to get easy looks all the way through.”
In what has been a common feature of Supercats victories this year, a superior first half set up the clinical win, allowing the bench to play a fair chunk of minutes.
Geelong outscored Ballarat in every quarter and spread its scorers across the floor, with five players reaching doubledigits. The “big three” — DeMarcus Gatlin (22 points), Nathan Herbert (20) and John Davis (14) — led the scoring, while Kristian Rocci and Liam McInerney impressed O’Neill off the bench.
“We’re fit and that’s why we played the way we have all season,” O’Neill said.
“We haven’t played anyone massive minutes. No one in our team has averaged over 30 minutes a game.
“We had a couple of players get into foul trouble, but yet again we had people step up.”
O’Neill said depth was the Supercats’ weapon at this stage of the year and he would continue to use it when they faced Hobart in the penultimate game of the season.
“The beauty of our team is our depth, which means that on any given night anyone can step up,” he said.
“You look down the bench and there’s never a moment where you’re like, ‘I’d love to give him some court time but I don’t want to play him because he might make a mistake’.
“It makes us difficult to scout, makes us a little bit unpredictable and harder to guard.”