Dandenong’s Adrian Campbell elevates against Cairns Marlin Kelly Williams during the ABA national final on Sunday.By Paul Pickering
THE Dandenong Rangers finally met their match in Sunday’s Australian Basketball Association (ABA) national grand final, out-gunned and out-muscled by the Cairns Marlins 110-98 at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre.
The back-to-back Big V League champions wore the unfamiliar underdog tag in the grand final after the Marlins destroyed the reigning ABA champions the Geelong Supercats by 32 points in their semi-final.
The Rangers secured their own berth by accounting for the Sydney-based Sutherland Sharks by 15 points on Saturday night. With Cairns boasting five players from the Taipans’ National Basketball League squad, it was always going to be a struggle for Dandenong to contain the Marlins’ heavy artillery.
And so it proved, as Cairns shot an improbable 55 per cent from beyond the three-point arc for the match, including a series of daggers to the heart of the Rangers in the second half.
Dandenong started the game promisingly, with Brent Hobba (20 points) nailing an early three and Ash Cannan (20 points, 11 rebounds) connecting on a trademark hook shot to open up a narrow lead in the first quarter.
But with the Rangers’ defence collapsing in on Marlin and Boomers squad member Nathan Jawai (21 points, 13 rebounds) in the paint, the door was left open for shooters Aaron Grabau (24 points), Gary Boodnikoff (23 points) and Dwayne Vale (16 points) to take aim from long range.
An injection of energy from substitutes Adrian Campbell and Mehmed Bektas ignited Dandenong in the second term before a buzzer-beating bomb from Grabau gave the Marlins a 66-65 lead at half-time.
After sitting out the warm-ups during the break because of illness, Vince Inglima’s (18 points) aggression rescued a stagnant Dandenong offence in the third term to keep the Rangers within striking distance.
But when Jawai dunked violently on Hobba in the dying minutes of the third quarter the momentum had shifted for good.
Despite the desperate attempts of the Rangers to claw their way back in the final term, the supremely confident Marlins would not relinquish their vice-like grip on the title.
Having been relegated to ABA bridesmaids for the second year running, the Dandenong squad members were forlorn during the presentations.
But when the dust settles on an incomplete ABA title tilt, the Rangers will take some solace in the quality of opposition it took to end their barnstorming 2007 campaign.
