Chargers honoured ... then angered at draw

THE Hobart Chargers were on top of the world when captain Craig Moller and basket bandit Tre Nichols were named in the SEABL’s allstar team yesterday, but did a double take when they realised they must play Kilsyth in the first round of finals next weekend.

In a cruel twist, because of the way the SEABL ladder works, the Chargers, Nunawading and Kilsyth had a three-way tie for top of the ladder, but Hobart was relegated to third on a countback.

Anthony Stewart was not a happy Chargers coach after discovering his men will play Kilsyth, including its three best players — Felix Von Hofe, Dane Pineau and Sam Daly — who are coming back for the finals after a trip to China with the Sydney Kings last week.

“Kilsyth have been on top of the ladder the whole year but they lost to Albury on Saturday night, so there were three teams locked in first place,” Stewart said. “We went down to third because of the SEABL’s head-to-head countback, but the system they use is ridiculous because some teams play each other once and some play each other twice.

“For some reason after all of that, which none of us can work out, we finished third.”

The Chargers play Kilsyth on the road on Saturday night.

“We just got unlucky having to play Kilsyth,” Stewart said.

“The winner is to go straight through to the semi-final and, if we lose, we get a home final the week after against the winner of six and seven.”

Nichols and Moller went to Melbourne yesterday to the SEABL Awards, where they received the Leading Scorer and Leading Rebounder awards respectively.

They were also named in the All SEABL First Team along with Peter Hooley (Ballarat), Ray Turner (Bendigo) and Tom Wilson (Tigers), who was also crowned SEABL MVP.