Sharna finds her niche for Chargers

THE HOBART Chargers will head into their match-up with Waverley in Kingston on Friday hoping one of their new weapons can continue to fire after a big mid-season move.

Perennial Chargers starting guard Sharna Thompson was moved to the bench halfway through the season, as the team looked to nurse her back from a finger injury.

While it was initially a temporary move, Chargers coach Dwain Davie decided to make it permanent after the 21-yearold continued to provide a huge scoring spark off the bench.

After a slow start to the season, Thompson has found her groove since the move and last weekend put in her best two-game stretch of the season, with 21 points in the Chargers’ big victory over Geelong, followed by a sizzling 32 points against Bendigo, in which she hit six threes in the loss.

“The decision to bring her off the bench in the first game was simply because she’d basically had two weeks off and hadn’t been able to prepare enough to play significant minutes,” Davie said.

“But since then it’s actually worked out better for the team, because we have more scoring punch coming off the bench, as the starting players have been able to manage the points load and then we bring Sharna in and it gives us another option.

“We want some scoring punch off the bench and she’s been fantastic with the move.

“I’m sure she’d be preferring to start, but she recognises at the moment it’s the best thing for the team and it’s really worked out well with how she’s played and she’s doing a great job in that role.”

The Chargers – who have won four of their past seven games – will host Waverley (11-6) in Kingston at 6pm on Friday, with the men to follow at 8pm.