The Roller Hawks title defence started in dominant fashion, with four victories in the opening round, including over perennial contenders Kilsyth and Perth.
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In the National Wheelchair League's cluster round at Brisbane, Wollongong took full advantage of their former teammate Michael Auprince being ejected for an unsportsmanlike foul just before half-time to cruise to an 89-70 win over Perth.
Without the imposing inside presence of Auprince, the Wheel Cats were unable to stop some superb shooting from the Hawks, who controlled the second half 51-28, including 70 per cent accuracy.
Paralympian Brett Stibners played the starring role, finishing with 41 points, 11 rebounds and 6 assists.
Luke Pople scored 22 points to go with 8 assists while Shawn Russell contributed with 16 points and six rebounds on 8-9 shooting.
"The tech foul and the unsportsmanlike foul was unfortunate for 'Aupie' and Perth, and it helped us," Stibners said.
"Aupie was shooting well and playing well in defence.
"We eventually ground out a good win but it won't be the same the next time we play, Perth hadn't had a training session together before the weekend."
The win set the tone for the Hawks, who accounted for Kilsyth and West Adelaide on Saturday, before rounding out the weekend with a 48-point win over the Red Dust Heelers.
Stibners averaged 28 points, 10.3 rebounds and six assists across the four games including Sunday's game against Red Dust where he took a back seat, scoring just 12 points, but with 10 assists to allow Wollongong's bench players to shine.
Coach Brendan Dowler was good to his word on trying to get more out of his extended squad with Brad Fisher (27 minutes per game) and Clay Kelly (18.5 minutes per game) seeing plenty of game time and looking more and more comfortable as the weekend progressed.
Fisher had 10 points in the matches against both West Adelaide and Red Dust.
"Brad and Clay played really well this weekend contributing at both ends," Stibners said.
"They will get a lot of confidence from the opening round. The positive for us this weekend was when we clicked as a unit, we played really well."
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