Season is set to be a trial by Fire

THIS WNBL pre-season will be the most important Shannon Seebohm and the Townsville Fire have ever had.

With a condensed six-week season and the sharing of facilities with other teams in the competition’s hub, training opportunities are set to be scarce when the campaign begins.

Such an intensive demand on the players to perform each time they take the court could present injury concerns as the rounds heat up.

Between managing player workload, time to recover from fixtures, travel time and game days, Seebohm said the scheduling would have practice “very hard to come by”.

Instead, he said their measure of success would be how hard they play each match, but a slow start to the season could inhibit their ability to improve as the tournament wore on.

“The challenge I’m going to have is balancing players’ minutes and rest and making sure girls are fresh to play and back up two days later,” Seebohm said. “It’s definitely going to be a very different style of training to what we would usually do in a normal season.

“I’m a bit worried about it, but I think they (the players) will love it. I think all the players want to play, so the fact there’s some many games in a short space of time for them is going to be exciting.

“But I think the challenge is going to be, can they be a professional off the floor and do all the recovery they need to do, and balance that out with getting shots up and being as sharp as we can?

“I guess the great thing about playing so many games in a short space of time is you don’t have time to worry about your last game.”

Fortunately for Seebohm and his side, they have one edge. Or a disadvantage, depending on how they embrace it. The Fire will be the youngest outfit this WNBL, with the likes of Shyla Heal and Aliza Fabbro still teenagers, Zitina Aokuso just 21.

While Seebohm is confident the likes of Mia Murray and Lauren Nicholson will provide the experience needed to steady the youthful exuberance, the latter could be their advantage as the competition continued. With youth comes energy, speed and enthusiasm, and the coach said that would embody the style of play they intended to employ.

But he said it was also the depth of his squad that enticed him the most for the forthcoming challenges, with every player eager to establish themselves in Australian basketball.

“When I look at other teams in the competition there may be people who say on paper they look better than us but I actually think our depth is really going to help us throughout the season,” Seebohm said.

“Every player we’ve signed all have something to prove, they’re all coming from different levels or some players are stepping up into starting roles.

“We’ve got players coming from leagues overseas who really want to cement themselves in Australia and put their name on the map.”