Wheelchair Basketball: Northland looking for home success

Cameron Leslie. PHOTO/PHOTOSPORT.NZ

Northland will be hoping to utilise their home advantage as they look for a strong showing in the latest round of Northern League wheelchair basketball action.

Northland Development and a combination team from Northland and Bay of Plenty will be the local hopes at ASB Stadium as they hope to perform strongly on home soil tomorrow.

Team member Cameron Leslie said 2018 has been a great year for development of the sport in Northland.

"The Northland team is strong numbers wise but we have split into two teams this year so we can develop our players more, he said.

"Last year we won the B Division at the National Championships but we had a number of new players who were developing.

"We made a call to combine with Bay of Plenty for the Northern League to try get our newer players more court time, and it has been a success because they've learned a lot and have become better players because of it."

The Northland sides will each play in four 10-minute quarter matches across the day, starting at 9am tomorrow.

There will be a $10 hangi available for players and supporters as a fundraiser. For pre-bookings, manager Joshua Hodgson is the port of call on 021 070 8031.

As for the Development team's chances of victory, Leslie is confident they can pick up wins despite a strong field.

"We've had a mixture of results so far this season but for this tournament I rate our chances of finishing higher up the rankings," he said.

"Mid West would be considered the favourites but then it's pretty open, we have a few players back who haven't played in other rounds so we have a little extra to our weaponry this round."

The Northland crew are on the lookout for new talent to school on the sport and develop.

Leslie said they have a lot of support from Parafed which is great for helping foster new talent into the setup.

"We are always on the lookout for new players, as far as we're concerned we'd love to have more," he said.

As a team we are lucky we have such great support from Parafed Northland, who do a lot of recruiting for us through the work they do with Northlanders living with a physical disability.

"But, we always want more. Parafed also do an amazing job at finding us funding to travel and compete in the tournaments around New Zealand. Having the ability to travel and play basketball for Northland is special.

"Wheelchair basketball is one of those sports which can take pretty much any disability - from those with one leg longer than the other to tetraplegics.

"There's a place and a role for pretty much every disability so long as you can propel a wheelchair.

"We have a coach (Glenn McDonald) who is teaching us structures and plays so we are developing as a proper team, and he is arguably the country's best wheelchair basketball coach."