Chargers ready for the final challenge
HOBART will head to Kilsyth this weekend with a point to prove in the SEABL qualifying final after having home-court advantage ripped from underneath them.
The Chargers finished with the same record (15-5) as the Cobras and minor premier Nunawading but, with the league still using head-to-head records to split teams despite scrapping conferences and moving to a top-eight system, it relegated Hobart to third.
While bitterly disappointed at missing out on a Week 1 home final, Stewart said his squad was up for the task of bringing down what he rated as the best outfit in the league to earn a week off and a home preliminary final.
“Why would you just not make it a percentage-based system? If you are equal on points, then it goes to the team that has the highest percentage,” Stewart said. “It simplifies it, makes it easy for everyone and gives you mean- ing every game to go out and win by as much as you can.
“The system is broken in our view, but we will deal with it and move on. We are coming up against what I think is the best team, and I said that at the start of the season. The only way we can prove ourselves is to go over and beat Kilsyth and that will give the league a wake-up call.
“I’m very confident … we are going to have to play extremely well but we are playing some fantastic basketball.”
The Chargers are riding a league-best seven-game winning streak and, with Mathiang Muo back to full fitness, have a starting five equal to that of any side.
The two sides have not met since the opening round of the season — where Kilsyth won by eight points at the DEC — but Hobart is a different beast.
“Craig [Moller] turned up 10 hours before the game, we are a different team now,” Stewart said. “As a team it’s [the last month] probably the best basketball we’ve played all year.”