The Wollongong Hawks will be seeking redemption in more ways than one in tonight’s stoush with the New Zealand Breakers.
Eager as they are to erase last week’s haunting 41-point thrashing from Gold Coast, the Hawks haven’t forgotten how the Breakers gate-crashed their season-opening home game back in October.
Full coverage of the Hawks New Zealand cruised to a 98-82 victory that night, effectively sending the Hawks into a tailspin from which they have never really recovered.
An 81-63 road win over the Breakers in round six temporarily eased the pain, but the reigning champions (15-5) dismissed the loss as a mere aberration against a lesser opponent and swiftly reclaimed their place at the top of the ladder.
Wollongong (5-14) headed in the other direction and are locked in a battle with Adelaide to avoid the wooden spoon.
The only time the Hawks have finished last in the club’s 33-year existence was the 1997 season.
‘‘I’m sure they’ll be fired up to get some revenge on us,’’ Wollongong centre Larry Davidson said. ‘‘But at the same time, we lost to them in the first game of the year at home so we want to make up for that.
‘‘We’ve shown we can beat these guys so we’re not going out there just to keep it close, give them a tough game and hope for a moral victory. We want to win.
‘‘We don’t want to just say ‘oh well, we can’t make the finals, the season’s over, let’s not worry about it’. We definitely still want to get better and try to win as many games as we can, and also ruin some other guys’ seasons.’’
Losing by such a big margin to the Blaze led to some soul-searching among the Hawks.
‘‘We went over the video and we weren’t really prepared for what Gold Coast did, coming at us so physical,’’ Davidson said.
‘‘Gordo [coach Gordon McLeod] definitely told us that’s how they were going to come out and play, and it still hit us and we didn’t react.
‘‘We didn’t adjust to it for the whole game, so we’ve gone over that and done some stuff at training to help that.
‘‘We thought we were getting manhandled the whole game, but when we watched it on tape it didn’t look as bad as it felt.
‘‘I’m sure New Zealand would’ve watched that and they’ll be thinking to get physical with us and get after us, and try and deny our ball reversals and take us out of our offence.
‘‘It’ll be a test to see if we’ve progressed from last week.’’
Davidson was largely ineffectual against the Blaze, playing 11 minutes and tallying two points and one rebound.
He has a difficult assignment tonight against Breakers centres Gary Wilkinson and Alex Pledger.
‘‘They’re different players and it’ll be an effort to keep them off the boards,’’ Davidson said. ‘‘Last week I was pretty terrible on the boards, so that’s something I definitely want to improve.
‘‘They’re [Wilkinson and Pledger] both pretty physical players. You have to adjust to their skills but ... it’s about getting physical with them and trying to keep them away from what they do good.
‘‘In our last home game [against Melbourne] we had a really good win, so we want to try and keep that going.’’
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