Wollongong Hawks rated outsiders for NBL title

Poor preseason form has assured the Wollongong Hawks of rank outsider status for the NBL title.

The Hawks are rated dead last in betting markets and paying upwards of $20 to win the championship.

Title holders Perth are the standout favourites at $2.25, followed by Melbourne ($5) and New Zealand ($6).

Interestingly, last season's grand finalists Adelaide ($17) are priced just ahead of Wollongong.

Sydney are at $13, while North Queensland clubs Cairns and Townsville are equal at $11.

The Hawks started the preseason with wins against touring American and Chinese teams before losing their past three trials to NBL opponents by an average of 17.6 points.

Bookmakers have ranked Wollongong at or near the bottom for the past five years, yet they have made the semi-finals in three of those seasons.

Team captain Oscar Forman wasn't surprised to see the Hawks had typically been written off.

"That's what we're used to," Forman said.

"Every year we don't expect anything different.

"When the odds come out preseason, we're always picked down there."

As usual, the Hawks are confident they will be better than expected.

"We just worry about ourselves rather than what the bookies think of us and where they pick us," Forman said.

"We believe we've worked hard throughout the preseason to gel as a team and we'll continue to work hard through the season.

"I'm not really surprised they've picked us there because in the preseason we haven't put it together for a complete game yet. We've had a couple of disappointing performances, but the thing for us is to make sure we're all getting on the same page and understanding how to play with each other, and playing the unselfish style that the Hawks always play."

The Hawks took on the Cairns Taipans in a trial on Friday night in Cairns. They meet again in another trial on Saturday night.

"We've played a couple of games with decent halves and then had a bad quarter, so we need to play a whole game," Forman said.

"If we fix that, take care of our defence and understand our offence, we'll be good.

"In our last few games, there were times we'd be frustrated offensively and we'd try to rectify the problem too quickly, rather than letting the ball do the work. Everyone tries to fix it themselves instead of trusting our system. That's our biggest thing. When we really start trusting the system we'll be fine."

The Hawks play two games in the opening round of the 2014-15 season - a home clash with Townsville on October 10 and an October 11 road duel with arch-rivals Sydney.