Coach convinced Giants upset on the cards

Giants coach Tony Nixon is convinced his side are capable of upsetting Poneke-Kilbirnie in their Inter-City series men's softball match to be played at Haitaitai Park in Wellington tomorrow. Nixon accepts that with three Black Sox Stacey McLean, Steve Ratu and Craig Wallace in their line-up, Poneke-Kilbirnie will be fancying their chances of success but he says Giants can take considerable heart from their strong showing when the two teams last met. That came just a few weeks back when they clashed in the final of the Kapiti tournament and after the scores were locked at 1-1 at the end of ordinary time Giants were one up in the tiebreaker when a storm broke and the game was called off.
Nixon believes too that the two wins Giants secured against another highly-rated Inter-City combination Kapiti in "friendlies" played at South Park in Masterton last weekend illustrated that an intensive training regime was paying dividends.
"I think that showed we are in the frame of mind you need to be in to play a team with the quality of P-K, it was a good boost to confidence in that respect," he said.
Nixon sees the P-K batting line-up as posing the main threat to Giants with McLean, Ratu and Wallace all being hitters with the power to clear the fence on a regular basis.
"We have to restrict their batters, we'll be in big trouble if they take to us there,"he said. Lessening the likelihood of that though is that in Ritchie Clarke and Justin Karaitiana, Giants have two pitchers who time and again have shown the ability to rise to the occasion. It was Clarke who did the business against P-K in the Kapiti tournament and providing accountancy examinations don't keep him away from tomorrow's action he is likely to be first cab off the rank in the pitching department. As far as Giants's own batting is concerned, Nixon has been delighted with the consistency they have shown in pre-season play and while he respects the strength of the P-K pitching he is sure they have the skills to cope with it.
"You seldom get too many runs in games like this but if it comes down to batting depth we should be OK," he said.