Coaches Report - 16/17 August

Our last road trip of the season started in a delayed fashion last evening. We changed our regular trip itinerary from flying into Sydney Saturday then busing the 3 to 3.5 hours to Canberra to flying direct to Canberra on the Friday night. We thought a good night's sleep, be up early have a good breaky, a nice walk, snooze, lunch, a nice walk, a snooze and the be ready for the clash for 5th place overall with the Knights.

Our flight scheduled to depart at 9:45pm from Coolongatta finally hit the air at 11:45 putting us into the hotel at close to 2am, the boys will have a little sleep in time this morning!


The flight saw youngster Cam Trew celebrate his 19th Birthday in the Australian Skies somewhere between Gosford and Coffs Harbour, the boys sang Cam a fine rendition of Happy Birthday or "Appy Birday" as Lachance well belting out.

This weekend will be one of pride and character with our final 4 aspirations dashed we are now playing for 5th spot and to finish the season above 500

It starts tonight with the game against the Knights and Sunday in Sydney against the even 1st placed Bears. Obviously, the opportunity to pass the Knights in the standings and to be the spoiler in the Bears quest to secure the minor premiership will be enough incentive.

The Line-up this weekend is lean and mean:

Goaltenders 30-Simo Mustonen - Import and 1-Brenton Cooney, both played solid last weekend and both will see action this weekend.

On Defense you will find the Birthday Boy 8- Cam Trew, now 19. Cam has played real solid the second half of the season, Cam will teamed with 17- "A" Ross Howell, Ross will be logging heaps of ice time over the weekend.

4- "A" Chris Kerr-Import will team with 5- Ben Spillane who returns to his natural position, Chris and Ben will make a formidable pair,

Upfront we will reunite the line of 22- "C" Gaetan Royer-Import, 7 -Brian Lachance-Import and 16 -Jack Conner, look for this line to have a huge weekend.

The other forward line will be made up of 9 -Robert Orosz 12- James Lewis-Import and 10 -Jonny Bale. This is a real solid combination and they will put some runs on the board,biscuits in the baskets or pucks in the net over the weekend depending on where you come from

20- Marco Bertossa winds out the line-up and will receive ample playing time between the two lines. I also have the option of dropping Brian back to D if needed.

If it was Halloween, I couldn't be happier with this skeleton crew to rattle their way through the weekend to 2 victories and to put some fear into our opposition!!

Regards
Kevin