Hi Sports Fans,

We've had a decent start to the season, as good as can be expected given our comparatively short pre-season, but this is an important weekend for us. The game on Saturday against Liverpool should give us a chance to focus on our execution but we can't take anything for granted based on their 99 point defeat last weekend. Although we won the two games against Huddersfield in reasonable comfort, both games showed that we need to tighten up in certain areas if we're going to challenge this season.

Our defensive intensity needs to improve and our communication is something that we need to work on in the next few weeks. I challenged the players on court in the 4th quarter at Huddersfield to talk more on defence and it's something that really needs to get better.

The game on 2nd Round National Cup game Sunday is a different prospect altogether. Mansfield came down from Div 2 at the end of last season but have recruited in the off season and are desperate for a quick return to the higher division. Hopefully, we will have something to say about that at the end of the season but for now, I'm looking forward to what should be a competitive game this weekend.

Laterz, innit.

Posted on: Friday 19th October

Well, here we are at the start of a brand new season. I know Platten and Purnell have been right on the edge of their seats all summer waiting for another dose of coach's corner so here it is guys.

We knew that Division 3 would be pretty tight this season with the best teams coming up from Div 4 to join what was already a competitive league, so we've recruited well over the summer and added some strength in depth. Rick Marsh and Kinsley Elmer have both signed for the Saints, although Kingsley is unavailable for our first game against Huddersfield tomorrow. Pawel Szafraniec has joined us from the Sheffield Arrows and Eugene Andrew, a former team mate of many of the Saints players, has signed from Huddersfield. We've also added Gene Brown, Tim Hampton, Tom Hope, Adam Kerrigan, and Gary Bywater who will all hopefully make an impact in their first season with us.

It will take a while for us to gel but we are confident that we can have a good start to the season and integrate the new signings quickly. Huddersfield in the cup will be a tough test to start the season but it should be a good game down at All Saints. Tip of is tomorrow (Sat 29th Oct) at 6pm.

Laterz, isn't it.

Posted on: Friday 28th September

Hello there!

So this entire season potentially comes down to Saturday's game with Leeds Met. Our win against Wear Valley was a good one and I think everyone would have preferred to play Leeds straight away rather than having a two week lay-off. But the extra week has given us a bit more time to prepare and we'll go into the game confident that we can get the win. Our focus has to be on doing all the little things that got us into such a good position during the first half of the season; playing as a cohesive unit and communicating with each other at all times.

Anyway, I'm off.

Laterz, innit!

Posted on: Wednesday 14th February

Hello,

Been a while since I've written anything on here and Mike Keys has been on my case about it so here goes. We've had a bit of a slump in form recently and although we beat barrow by 40 something points, we've never re-created the form we showed before the christmas break. A 3 point overtime loss to the Giants at Oak Tree was the result of us playing some of the worst basketball ever. Borderline terrible! Nobody could make a shot and our ball movement was slow. We managed a win against South Notts Tribe in the 3 Counties Cup but again, the perormance wasn't brilliant. Not that we didn't play well in spells but we didn't dominate for 40 minutes like I feel we probably should have.

Getting knocked out of the Shield against Leeds Met last weekend was pretty disappointing, primarily because of the manner in which we lost the game. Leeds thoroughly deserved the win. They seemed to want it more, they played well, and we didn't. We put ourselves in a 20 point hole early in the game and struggled from there on in. Again, the ball movement that was so good before the break was missing, players were missing open shots and hesitating on others, and our defensive rotation was pretty terrible to say the least.

But those two losses have gone now and we're focused on the league. We have an 8-1 record, the same as Leeds, while Mansfield Giants have 2 losses. We will make the trip north to play Leeds in a couple of weeks and then Leeds play at Mansfield the week after that. 2 key matchups that could potentially decide who will finish top of the division and who will take the second playoff spot. Before all that is decided, we have to go and play Wear Valley tomorrow. Not only must we win, but we must start to find the form that saw us go unbeaten through 14 games before christmas.

Posted on: Friday 2nd February

Hi all,

Tilly, I do have some sort of life outside of this website but I am happy to placate the 10s of fans that eagerly await my thoughts. Anyway, Wednesday night was a great night for the club (although I was suffering on Thursday morning like everyone else). We proved that the win in overtime in the last game against the Giants wasn't a fluke with some great basketball at both ends of the floor. I know some of us weren't happy with the 4th quarter performance but to be honest, I was. I know we made a few mistakes and allowed Mansfield to close the gap but the Giants were chasing the game at that point and it's very difficult to sustain that sort of dominance for 4 quarters. Other teams, we may have put away, but I think we are underestimating the Giants team if we think we should have just rolled on them in the 4th quarter. At some point, you have to make the decision that 'ok, it's time to just grind out the win now', and that's exactly what we did, and we did it well.

On to Sunday now and back to Oak Tree LC for our first league clash with the Mansfield Express. We beat them in our first game of the season, the first round of the National Shield, and won by 15. Again, there are no teams in the league that we can take for granted and Mansfield have some dangerous players. But if we can recreate the type of play that we demonstrated on Wednesday night, then we should go into the Christmas break without having suffered a loss in any competition.

Posted on: Friday 15th December

Hi.

Well, we are now 5-0 at the top of EBL 4 North and with 2 league games left until the christmas break, we are hoping to still be at the top in January. Our next game is tomorrow against Tyne Met Trojans. Although they seem to be struggling in the division at the moment, I know that they have some solid players and some very good outside shooters on their squad, and we're looking forward to another exciting game at All Saints. On Wednesday night, we travel down to Mansfield to play the Giants in our 3rd round National Shield game. Although we're not ecstatic about playing on a Wednesday night, we'll have to pull out all the stops to beat a team seeking revenge for their narrow loss to us in the league earlier in the year. Then, in our last game before christmas, we go down the road to Mansfield again, this time to play the Express who recently found their first win of the year against Tyne Met. We have beaten the Express before but again, there will be no easy games this year, as proved by Barrow's win against many peoples' pre-season title contenders Wear Valley Warriors.

Our last two games have shown that we need to concentrate harder on the task at hand for the full 40 minutes of every game. Against Leeds Met., the referees certainly didn't do us any favours but the game should never have been close enough that the referees could make a difference. Having said that, we showed great character in coming back from 8 points down to win by 3 in the last 2 minutes. Playing away at Sefton last weekend was also an experience. In their tight sports hall, we only had 10 minutes to warm up due to the kit arriving late and did not exactly have the best start to a game. We won the 3rd quarter 27-11 but then seemed to switch off and let Sefton right back into it.

Still though, the Saints are undefeated through 10 games in total and we have been working on the things that aren't going so well at moment so that we can keep that run going. We certainly aren't getting carried away with our winning streak and will be taking each game as it comes from here on out.

Posted on: Friday 8th December

Hey sports fans (and Mike Keys)!

Well, we've come through 2 of our 3 season defining games unscathed after a great win against Wear Valley (report) the other week and a suprisingly easy victory over Loughborough Student Cardinals (report) in the Shield on Sunday. The final game in this important triad is a home game against Div 4 North leaders Leeds Met Carnegie, who currently have a 4-0 record. We will be aiming to make that 4-1 and be the only team left in the division with an unblemished record. Leeds Met have recorded some impressive wins and have played very well by all accounts, but looking at the fixtures they seem to have had a slighlty easier ride up until now. However, as usual, we won't be taking anything for granted and will have to put on another top performance if we want to go clear at the top of the table this weekend.

Posted on: Tuesday 21st November

Hello

Been a while since I updated this section of the website. I know Purnell will have been on the edge of his seat waiting for the latest Coach's Corner. Anyway, the game against Mansfield Giants the other week was as hard fought as we expected it to be and it went right down to the wire. However, we showed great determination, never got down on ourselves for allowing them back into the game, and held on for a great overtime win (click here for match report).

One thing that I think we have to be really careful of is complacency. Things are not just going to come easy for us as a team and we have to realise that there are two other unbeaten teams out there who want to continue their runs. The next 3 games in our season are of paramount importance and we must maintain focus in the coming weeks. We play the first of these unbeaten teams on Saturday night at All Saints as Wear Valley Warriors visit Sheffield. Two weeks later we play Div3's Loughborough Student Cardinals in the 2nd round of the Shield, then a week later, we play Leeds Met Carneige, who are also unbeaten in Div4 so far this season.

The friendly we played on monday night against Bradford Dragons (thanks to them by the way for coming down at late notice), showed a degree of complacency and, although we won the game easily, the effort was not there at all times during the game. I think last night's training session, however, showed that everybody is focused and ready for the 1st of three big games that could shape the rest of our season.

Posted on: Friday 3rd November

Hi everyone.

This weekend's game will undoubtedly be our toughest test of our season so far as we welcome the Mansfield Giants to our home court here at All Saints School. Several of the Giants players are familiar to the Saints, with Dan Richards, Guy Renton, James Sutton and Mike Elland all moving from the Sheffield Arrows during the off season. The Giants have size throughout their squad and we know they will play with tenacity and aggression from the tip to the final buzzer.

However, our strong start to the season has given us confidence going into tonight's game. A 100-72 win away at Barrow last the weekend helped us build upon our solid victory over Mansfield Express II in the Shield, a team the Giants only managed to beat by 3 points. Although we have lost some of our own size in the form of Kyle Styan who unfortunately broke his ankle in the Barrow game, power forward and Sheffield Hallam graduate Nick Savage has been training with the squad. Nick has already made a significant contribution in training and will hopefully sign with us in the near future.

We've come a long way in a short time so let's keep working hard in training and make sure we execute when we get on the court on Saturday.

Posted on: Thursday 19th October

Our league campaign got off to a flying start with a 100-72 win away at Barrow Thorns on Sunday (click here for match report). I have to say I'm glad to have that particular road trip out of the way early in the season. Anyway, Tilly started his first game of the year and scored 27 points... the Beast. Woody chipped in with 18, mostly fast break scores. Either great anticipation and running, or no defence. Just kidding, Woody ran hard yesterday, must have been the flapjack energy boost on the way over there. Kyle Styan managed to injure his ankle after a whole minute of action and will probably be out for a few weeks at least... ...and he broke the shower.

We still need to get into our offence a little quicker and then have a little more patience on the wings, waiting for the picks and the play to develop. Our passing needs to sharpen up a bit as well but we scored 100 points so can't complain too much. Defensively we were pretty good but need to work on a few things this week in practice for what will be a much tougher game against Mansfield Giants on Saturday. Their guards, especially Danny Richards, will rebound from the perimeter so we need to be aware of that and make sure we're ready for their 'power-grafting' style and the defensive pressure they will put us.

Posted on: Monday 16th October