Rangers to rake in recruits

By Paul Pickering
DANDENONG coach Dale Waters has vowed to recruit the Rangers’ next franchise player this winter.
Reflecting on Dandenong’s first losing season in a decade, Waters last week said he would target established stars during an aggressive recruiting campaign aimed at bolstering his inexperienced roster.
The second-year coach said he was disappointed with his side’s 7-15 season, but still optimistic about the emergence of some young talent.
“I don’t think we’re that far away,” Waters said.
“We’ve got the culture and chemistry in the team to be successful for a long period of time.”
The Rangers were among the busiest WNBL clubs last winter and managed to secure some of the country’s best young players, including Australian Institute of Sport graduates Nicole Hunt, Katie Ebzery and Caitlin Cunningham.
But Waters is wary of burdening his young stars with too much responsibility.
“You can set foundations and develop young players as much as you like, but in this league you need some franchise players,” he said.
Before Waters and his staff begin that hunt, they must assess where it went wrong this season.
It would be easy to dwell on injuries to starters Hunt (knee), Caitlin Ryan (shoulder) and Jenni Benningfield (fractured eye socket), particularly when they coincided with Dandenong’s nine-game losing streak either side of the Christmas break.
There is no doubt that Ryan and Hunt were hampered for long periods and Benningfield’s freak injury – the result of a practice court poke from teammate Amelia Todhunter – was an untimely blow.
But the real root of the Rangers’ woes was a chronic inability to execute down the stretch.
Five points or less decided nine of Dandenong’s 22 games, and it lost seven of those.
That statistics suggests that the Rangers were consistently competitive, but lacked the experience – if not the confidence – to perform in the clutch.
And with the retirements of legendary stopper Emily McInerny and American centre Jenni Benningfield, Dandenong has now lost two of their leaders.
For all that bad news, there were definitely some notable performances from the girls in green and gold this summer.
Benningfield, who came with a big reputation, was everything the Rangers could have hoped for. She scored, rebounded, defended and fist-pumped her way through the season with amazing consistency.
Meanwhile, Ebzery seemed to grow more comfortable with every game, prompting Waters to hail her as the ‘bright spark’ in an otherwise gloomy post-Christmas period.
There is also a fair bit of ex-factor about Cunningham, who unveiled some tricks to go with her athleticism and spirit.
Second-year players Faith Probst, Amelia Todhunter and Clare Papavs all made steps in the right direction, while 24-year-old veteran Alison Downie averaged career highs in points and rebounds.
Waters knows there is the making of a solid team there, but maybe not a championship team.
In fact, the only position missing from Waters’ off-season shopping list is a point guard.
He says the Rangers have four key positions to be filled, with replacements for McInerny and Benningfield, a legitimate centre and another perimeter shooter topping the list.
Last season’s recruiting haul proved that Dandenong can attract the country’s young stars, now we’ll see if Waters and co can net the big fish.