Forman in action against Perth in December.
NBL
Perth have already covered more than 23,000 kilometres on their unbeaten run, but Wollongong captain Oscar Forman believes another cross-border trip could prove too much for the Wildcats on Sunday.
After the frantic stretch of travel to open the season, Perth kicked up their heels last weekend while the Hawks enhanced their title credentials in Adelaide.
Forman yesterday challenged his players to find the kind of intensity that Perth - who have conquered New Zealand, Townsville and Melbourne - will struggle to match away from home for another week.
"They've been on the road a lot, it's their fourth game on the road, so hopefully that's going to get to their legs a little bit," Forman said.
"But we'll see on Sunday.
"I think it's their intensity [which makes them hard to beat], they recruit guys who have a lot of intensity that gets under your skin, niggling and giving on loose balls.
"They press and we always work on our press break, but we need to make sure we can break that and find our offence quite easily."
In contrast to Perth, Wollongong have travelled 7600 kilometres to beat Cairns and Adelaide, as well overpowering Sydney and Townsville at the Sandpit.
However, the Wildcats have been in impressive form, beating Melbourne by nine and producing a 24-point thrashing of Townsville and a 21-point demolition of champions New Zealand.
With the Hawks flying since he took over as captain, Forman vowed to turn it around on a personal level after having what he labelled "a shocker" in the win over the 36ers.
"I had a shocker of a night, which I'm happy to forget," he said.
"But if I had such a bad night and we win comfortably, then it's fantastic for us, it shows we've got multiple guys who can step up."
But Forman said the Hawks proved their defence was well equipped to handle the heat, as well as being able to break the famous Perth press.
"We've been doing it well and we haven't really played a complete game yet," he said.
"We are playing fantastic defence and because they are lower scoring it might be ugly at times, [but] the trade-off is we're winning."
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