Victims of veterans

By Paul Pickering
WITH a little help from two returning veterans, Dandenong last week made defending champion Knox its first victim of the SEABL season.
The Rangers welcomed back Big V championship heroes Adrian Campbell and David Godfrey for the Thursday night clash with the Raiders, and their settling influence paid immediate dividends in the form of a 93-81 victory.
The ‘retired’ pair, who offered their services after an injury to shooting guard Jon Shepherd, were part of a 10-man rotation used to great effect by Rangers coach Warren Dawson.
The home side had five double-figure scorers, led by Lucas Walker (19 points), Vince Inglima (16) and Luke Fitzgerald (15, 15 rebounds), and made Raiders stars C.J. Massingale (26) and Mick Hill (20) work extremely hard for their points.
The Knox duo went 13-for-33 from the floor under pressure from a revolving door of Dandenong defenders. Former Ranger Lester Strong (10) found himself in early foul trouble and saw just 15 minutes of action.
Dawson admitted to feeling “a fair sense of relief” at breaking a four-game losing streak.
“The boys were pretty buoyed by the win and happy to get the monkey off the back,” he said.
“And I think we’ve discovered the way we need to play, so we just need to continue to work on that.”
Dawson acknowledged the support from Campbell and Godfrey, who trained with the group in the lead-up to the game in a bid to reinforce Dawson’s structures.
“They’ve been around the club for a long time, most of the guys know them well and with their experience, they certainly had a positive influence,” he said. “But they certainly don’t regard themselves as the saviours or anything.”
Campbell had 13 points in 20 minutes on the floor, while Godfrey provided three minutes of relief for starting point guard – and Adrian’s brother – Dwayne Campbell.
Star centre Brent Hobba had 14 points and seven rebounds in an unfamiliar role coming off the bench.
Dawson said his charges played smarter and with more intensity than they had in the first month of the season.
“We tried to rotate guys through as quickly as we could, to keep the intensity up, and I think that might be the key for us now,” he said.
“We stuck with our offensive structure better than we have against the other teams, even though in some respects Knox might be the best team we’ve played.”
The Rangers, having accounted for an underachieving Knox (2-3), will now host 2009 SEABL runners-up Frankston (1-4) on Saturday night.
Dandenong’s SEABL women also registered their first ‘W’ of the season when they edged out Knox 68-65 last Thursday night.
WNBL Rangers Amelia Tod- hunter (19), Steph Cumming (16, 9) and Clare Papavs (15, 8) were the stars of the hard-fought victory.
They too face Frankston this Saturday, with tip-off at 5pm.
Meanwhile, Dandenong’s WNBL side made another important signing this week, securing emerging power forward Ellie Manou from the Sydney Uni Flames for the 2010-11 season.