By RUSSELL BENNETT
WINLESS from their first 10 games, with an average losing margin of 46 points.
The numbers don’t paint a pretty picture for the Pakenham Warriors’ Big V women’s side in its debut season.
But those numbers also paint the team’s players and coaching staff in a particularly unfair light.
“If you have a look at the other teams in our division, the majority of their players are in their late teens or early 20s and that’s where we haven’t got the majority of our players,” said Warriors head coach Darren Thomas.
“We’ve got 15, 16, 17-year-olds and then others at the other end of the scale.
“Obviously, those older girls bring the experience, but the younger girls are coming in and they’re green – they’re getting bashed around.”
This has been one hell of a baptism of fire for Thomas and his charges, but it’s also given a glimpse into an exciting future where three, four, five years down the track the Warriors’ “green” teenagers suddenly have a wealth of experience to their names.
Thomas has lived and worked far and wide – all around Victoria, interstate and even overseas – and has seen plenty in his time in basketball.
But yet his current role with the Warriors is unlike anything he’s ever experienced.
“I’m enjoying working with Pakenham,” he said with pride, sitting in the stands of the Warriors’ home court at Cardinia Life.
“This is a growing club in a huge growth corridor.
“It’s my first time coaching at Big V level but the show that they put on here and the product that Pakenham offers is, in my opinion, the best in the competition.
“We get a good crowd here, it’s well organised, and they run a good show. We’re pretty fortunate – you come in and everything is just ready to go.
“The committee is really well organised, too.
“We’re slowly starting to get the link between where the juniors are at the moment, and us.
“We haven’t got there yet in year one. The men have progressed a bit – they’re starting to have some kids from the ‘18s go into their group – and that’s where we need to get to.”
The St Francis Xavier school teacher by day explained just why Pakenham chose this year to introduce its women’s Big V program.
“They’d done some groundwork playing MMBL and they’d built that from having just one team to two of eight or nine girls so there were 18, 19, 20 girls altogether,” Thomas said.
“They had the background and they had the girls that said they’d like to play for Pakenham, so they took the next step.
“The challenge is the gap between where MMBL is and where Big V is. There’s nothing in between and we’re falling in that gap at the moment.”
Thomas arrived at Pakenham from a basketball powerhouse at Ballarat – having learned from the likes of SEABL women’s coach Peter Cunningham.
Now he gets to shape his own team – an opportunity he views as incredibly exciting.
“There’re no other teams in our competition that play 10 players for 15 minutes per game,” Thomas said.
“For us, winning and losing is all well and good but there’s big picture stuff to contend with.
“These girls who’re 15, 16 and 17 – we’re viewing them as players who’ll be with us for four or five years and by getting 15 minutes into them now, we can build that up to 20 next year and, hopefully, in time, they’re the ones who’re the better players in this competition.
“You have to pick your poison a little bit. It’s essentially short-term pain for long-term gain.”
Thomas admitted that, to this point, turnovers are his side’s Achilles heel.
“Just being able to get through any sort of pressure defence has been a struggle for us,” he said.
“I’ve never been involved in a team where we’ve had close to 50 turnovers. You can’t be competitive when you’re doing that, but again it’s one of those things where you’re learning by doing.
“If we do one thing and it doesn’t work, we need to alter it. We need to be able to learn on the run.”
But the Warriors are improving. It might be only incrementally on the stats sheet at this point, but in actual fact their gains are much more noticeable.
“We are getting better and it’s structure, more than anything,” Thomas said.
“The skillset is improving slowly but it’s more about the structure – knowing where to run, and the timing of when to get there. It’s the game sense and the game understanding.
“Typically, sportspeople are hands-on learners.
“I could draw something up on a whiteboard 1000 times but some of them wouldn’t pick it up because that’s just not the way they learn.
“It’s about giving them the chance to go out and do it, and just see how they go.
“There’s nothing wrong with making an error. As long as you don’t keep making the same one you’re moving in the right direction.”
Thomas said he has loved his time with Pakenham so far and wants to continue in his role next season – alongside assistant Patience Grayer – as the team keeps building.
“It’s exciting in the sense that we get to put our own stamp on the team, and Patience has a lot of expertise,” Thomas said.
“She’s come in with her ability to up-skill junior players, and if we can up-skill three or four teenagers in our group we’re going to do pretty well.”
Thomas said Natalie Bjelan, Megan Tolley, Chloe Marten and the evergreen Vanessa Westh – to name just a few – were among the players who made his side tick.
“Natalie just brings something really special to the team,” he said.
“She obviously has her ups and downs with her ability to finish around the basket but her work ethic is first class.
“She trains like it’s her last training session each time she steps on to the court.
“Having Chloe Marten, who’s a developing bigger player, see and experience playing against Nat consistently has been amazing.
“Nat doesn’t take her lightly, either. She bumps her around at training and makes her better by challenging her.
“Megan has been really good – she gels the group exceptionally well. I don’t know how she does it. She’s not a loud person but she just gets along with everybody.”
And, as for the 41-year-old Westh?
“She outruns the young kids!” Thomas said.
“She’s got incredible endurance – she’s not a tall player, or the quickest player, but if you have a look at the contributions she makes to games they’re massive.”
Thomas is in his 18th year of coaching at various levels, yet season 2015 is still one of firsts for him.
“This is the first time I’ve been involved in a team that consistently struggles on the court, but when it comes to training I have 10 girls on the list and nine of them – minimum – are there twice a week. That’s phenomenal,” he said.
“I’m rapt that they keep coming along. It shows the culture that we’re building, but it’s very unusual for a group of players in a situation like this.
“It’s just not something I’ve come across before.
“It’s amazing – you just turn up and they’re there and chirpy. They’re not coming into the gym with their heads down, and it’s not a chore for them.
“They come in and they’re genuinely excited to get better.
“Wins and losses are black and white. It’s very easy to judge success on that alone, and if you were to do that with us you’d say we’re having a terrible year.
“But for us it’s about the culture of hard work and making each other better, and you can’t measure that.”
