Crocs coach says Hawks should've made Martin a priority

The Hawks have won six of 26 games, a record that would look much worse if they hadn’t struck a late-season purple patch and triumphed in three of their past four matches.

The sixth-placed Crocodiles have also won three of their past four and are seeking their 11th victory of the season when they host Wollongong on Friday night.

After reaching the semifinals in three of the previous five seasons, the Hawks have bottomed out with one of the worst records in club history.

Dennis believes their troubles started when they didn’t re-sign experienced point guard Rhys Martin in the off-season.

Martin rejoined the Hawks in round four, but they were already in a rut at that stage with one win from six games.

‘‘The point guard position is one of the most important positions on the floor and the success of the Hawks came largely from having that stability with Rhys at that position, so not having him to start with took away that guy who can settle things down,’’ Dennis said.

‘‘[Import] Gary’s [Ervin] coming from a helter skelter environment in [former club] Adelaide to a more controlled environment and it took him a while to adjust back to that.

‘‘[Import] Jahii [Carson] has taken quite a while to adjust. He’s a rookie guard who obviously has his own ideas on how he thought it should be done and it’s obvious they clashed early on. But now he’s contributing very well off the bench. That stuff takes time, and sometimes the fans forget that.

‘‘You bring in [2.18m centre] Luke Nevill and the Hawks hadn’t had a real go-to guy in the middle who demands the ball or gets a bit sooky. All of a sudden you have to deal with that and you have to rebuild and re-adjust things.’’

Townsville demolished Melbourne by 37 points last weekend, backing up the previous week’s impressive home win over title contenders New Zealand.

‘‘Our New Zealand win was outstanding. It was the best defensive job we’ve done and we did it against a team fighting for first place,’’ Dennis said.

‘‘We’ve constantly talked about what we’re trying to build and get done on the floor and we’re bearing the fruit of that. We’re finishing on a real positive.

‘‘It doesn’t always result in wins on the scoreboard, but if you look at the development of guys like [Mitch] Norton, [Todd] Blanchfield, [Mirko] Djeric and [Clint] Steindl, we’re ticking along okay. In the last six weeks we’ve been playing as well as anybody.’’