Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the All Sport Breakfast podcast with Darcy
Wildegrave from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Stewey Basketball League for the women's Being Fantastic Final is
coming up tomorrow and were joined now by Alex S. Stogovich.
He is the head coach of the tailing up based
at five.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Good morning, coome moning to you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Looking forward to tomorrow. That'll be an understatement. You've got
a chart at three o'clock at home to do something
to the Queens that doesn't get done much.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Yeah. Look, I mean they've won the first inaugural championship,
they lost the final last year, they're back in the
final this year, so you know we've got to work
cut out. But if we can bet the Queen's tomorrow,
I'll be super happy and obviously I'll mean a lot
to our fan base.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Plainly, you focus on what you bring to the court,
not on what the Queens can bring. We'll talk about
that later. But from your perspective coming out of the
semi finals, where does this team need to left? What
do you need to instill in them before the game
tips off? To more afternoon?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Well, for us, it's it's going to be more of
the same, to be honest with you, I mean, we
we've got a certain style of play. It came off
really well in the semi final against against the cahu
last week, and we're going to try to approach the
game with the same mindset. We're going to play fast,
We're gonna shoot a lot of threes. And that's if
the Queens can keep up with us.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Do you think they can as that a whole Maybe
that they can't plug this part of your what you
do and focusing on them more considering on what you're
good at or finding somewhere to get underneath the skin
of the Queens.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Well, I mean that's our identity to be fair, like
we started that last year. We think that's unique to
New Zealand. We'll play a lot faster, We shoot a
lot of a lot more threets than anybody else. And
you know, like since since we've gone on our winning
streak here, when when everybody has been healthy, teams have
struggled to keep up with us.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
And on that, how healthy is your squad? Have you
got a decent amount of player still there who runs
there on the roster?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah? Nook? On what everybody's healthy at the moment like
we had. We had the misfortunate that MICHAELA. Cowling, who
was probably our best player last year, missed the first
five games of the regular season. She had some health
issues so she came in late. And then we had
Morgan jaeger Our Australian point Cup break breaker risk the
first minute of the first game, so she missed the
following eight games. So now we've had this is going
(02:25):
to be our sixth game together as a group, and yeah,
look now that we're healthy, I think people can see
what what this team is capable of.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I'm talking to other players involved in TOIHI. There's a
theory that a lot of these players can equally swap
between numbers. They take different spots. They plainly seen as
different because he's so tall. But is that something that
you guys look at as well, The ability to turn
over positions to play anywhere that's needed at the time.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Yeah, I think this is where the game is going
in general, and I'm very much a fan of that. So,
like we're pretty versatile like a one to four where
we can switch a lot of things. We've got similar
hide where we're very athletic. It's probably only our Santa
Laram Spaden was a true center. But everybody is pretty interchangeable.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
And that makes for not confusion in the ranks. But
I suppose even for you in your defensive mode when
you don't know what's coming either, does that make for
tricky defensive mechanisms?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Well, I mean, we do know what's coming, so, like
we spend a lot of time scouting using video, so
we break the opposition down very detailed. I've got great
staff there who spend a lot of time coming up
with a good defensive game plan. What it does for
us is it gives us versatility defensively. We can, like
I said before, we can switch from our point guard
to our power forward. We can basically switch one to four.
(03:45):
That allows us to play pretty good defense without having
to rotate too much, which which is always a plus.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
He's starting five, how it's always very important, but the
rotation off the bench that probably adds even more to it.
How's that working for you? You're satisfied with who you've
got to plug these gaps?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Yeah? Absolutely, And again like that has in our identity.
We can go nine deep. And you look at the
Queens and the cahu last week, they maybe play six,
possibly seven, and you know, our our mantras, let's let's
run them off the floor and we rotate our bench
in early. I've got complete faith in them. We've got
(04:23):
some great players coming off the bench, and you know
that they've got this ability to continue to apply pressure
offensively by running the floor hard and defensively by picking
up full cord and and our goal is always to
wear them out by the fourth quarter.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
And finally and wishing the best of life for this
final tomorrow. The quality of Toehi, it's gaining more and
more traction. There are more and more imports turning up
as well, and of course the nature of our local players.
The trajectory is quite amazing, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Yeah, it's fantastic. Like you look at the quality of
the league from your one to now, it's it's it's
uh staggering how much the league has improved over just
three years. You've got so many players who've played w
n B a high level college professionally overseas WNBL in Australia.
Then you combine it with our tolphins who are playing
in the league. You know last week you had for
(05:18):
for the CAO Italia Topaya and and and Panina Davidson,
and we've got McKenna dale. There's so many really high
caliber players in the league. And what it does is
it inspires the next generation.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
We've also got some really good young players on the
team and they get to train with these players day
in day out, and that's gonna inspire them. It's gonna
it's gonna show them, Hey, this is what it takes
if I want to become a professional, if I want
to go play college basketball. And I think it's just
a marvelous, marvelous league We've got going ye at the moment.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Well the finals all on tomorrow. It's a home game
for the Tonga. Fight is at the Queen Elizabeth Youth
seem To at tip Off is at three pm or
you can watch it on Sky TV. Ton up against
the Wellington team the Takeamano Queens. Alex, thanks for joining us,
Go hard but play fair.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Thank you, appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Appreciate yours as well, Alexa Stogovic. That's the Totline five coach.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
For more from the Your Sport Breakfast with Darcy Watergrave,
listen live to News Talk set be on Saturday mornings,
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