![Sam Froling and the Illawarra Hawks will be gunning to end Perth Wildcats' six-game winning streak when they play at WIN Entertainment Centre on Friday, December 8. Picture by Anna Warr Sam Froling and the Illawarra Hawks will be gunning to end Perth Wildcats' six-game winning streak when they play at WIN Entertainment Centre on Friday, December 8. Picture by Anna Warr](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/kZL4qV6yTxfrWZJxKQxjSN/bf0cd1d5-9495-431a-a087-b27c023fff4e.jpg/r0_420_4110_2740_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Sam Froling and the struggling Illawarra Hawks don't need any extra motivation to deliver a win over the Perth Wildcats in Wollongong on Friday.
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But Froling told the Mercury he would love nothing better than to end the Wildcats six-game winning trot.
The Hawks co-captain would also take great delight in beating a Perth outfit which discarded contracted player Todd Blanchfield, now playing for Illawarra, at the end of last season.
Blanchfield, a veteran of almost 400 NBL appearances across 14 years, was sat at the end of the bench for much of the final third of the season - alongside two-time NBL champion guard Mitch Norton.
The Wildcats then dumped the contracted pair at the end of last season amid a roster overhaul.
The John Rillie-coached Wildcats started this season slowly but on the back of MVP favourite Bryce Cotton have won six on the bounce heading into Friday's clash against the Hawks at WIN Entertainment Centre.
Froling would love to burst Perth's bubble and secure a much needed win for the 3-8 Hawks in the process.
"You always want to be the team to end the winning streak, and we got a bit of extra motivation because of how they handled the Todd Blanchfield situation last year," he said.
"We will be coming in ready to play and hopefully get a win."
The Hawks though will have to find a way to limit the influence of the NBL's leading point-scorer Cotton (21.7 points per game) to improve their chances of upsetting one of the league's hottest teams.
Froling added Illawarra would also have to play much better than they did in their one-point loss to Brisbane last Sunday.
"It was a close one and we made some good strides. Obviously it was tough to lose by one, but we got another one on Friday, so it's a pretty quick turnaround," he said.
"There's been some good signs of late but we're still not there, we definitely need to get better,
"I think we're looking better but there's still some offensive things that flow a little bit playing with each other in this kind of new style.
"And then defensively we also just need to keep getting better there, keep cleaning that up.
"That's improved a hell of a lot. If we keep improving it, we should see some more wins for us."
Froling has been one of the Hawks most consistent performers this season.
He had another good game against the Bullets, contributing 11 points and three rebounds, but foul trouble in the second half stunted his impact on the contest towards the back end of the game.
"That game was a little interesting. I was in a bit of foul trouble, I had to back off a little bit because of the way they were calling it.
"So part of my thing is sometimes just getting offensive rebounds or doing that stuff, but I don't think the foul trouble helped me at all.
"Hopefully I can stay out of foul trouble and deliver more against the Wildcats."