It’s 2010 all over again
On brink of preliminary final, Supercats sense a strange familiarity
WHEN Supercats star Jason Reardon departed the club four rounds into the 2010 SEABL season, his exit had the potential to either derail or galvanise Geelong’s season.
As coach Jamie O’Loughlin and veteran Seb Loader recalled, it did the latter, proving a key turning point in the Supercats’ championshipwinning campaign.
“Jason was a big part of our offence,” Loader said.
“He certainly was a minute-dominant player; he played a lot of minutes and was able to play at a high level for so many minutes, so him leaving opened the door for those guys to play a lot more.
“It sort of galvanised the group a little bit. It gave opportunities for a few other players and it came together.”
O’Loughlin described it as a “pivotal moment”.
“I think we were 1-3 and really struggling,” he said.
“Jason Reardon then retired or quit and we had to shuffle the deck a bit.
“For whatever reason, we clicked soon after that, so maybe that was the shake-up that was needed, I guess.”
As the current crop of Supercats embark on a SEABL preliminary final against Hobart tomorrow night, Loader, who’s now the chairman of Basketball Geelong, said there were plenty of similarities between the 2010 championship team and this year’s.
“I just remember how close the group was,” he said.
“A lot of those guys were Geelong boys and this year we’ve got a lot of local talent and it all came together at the right time.
“We were successful throughout the year for the most part, but we all just started clicking as we got to the pointy end, as they say, and that’s what this group has been able to do.”
That team boasted two gun imports — Isma’il Muhammad, who had been with the group a few years, and J’Nathan Bullock in his first season, which draws parallels with long-time import Demarcus Gatlin and first-year Supercat John Davis.
Loader and Dan George were the big men in 2010, roles now held by experienced pair Ma’alo Hicks and Liam McInerney, while Nathan Herbert and Jamie Medved have been a constant in the line-up for over a decade.
“If you look right through the roster, the similarities are strong all the way through, even to the point of the point guard role,” O’Loughlin said.
“Braith Cox was with the group as the veteran point guard and he was initially there just for support for Nick Owusu and now you flip the table on that and Nick’s the veteran and he’s the one there trying to support the young point guard in Michael Luxford.
“Dom Friend came into the team — this was about a midpoint through the season — and really just gave us an extra big body off the bench.
“That was a moment as well for us, I guess, because we went from having three front-court guys to having four and a guy like Dom coming back into the fold probably just tipped us over the edge.
“We had so much cover in every position and the options we had did make us so hard to play against.
“The similarities are striking and hopefully they get the same result.”