By PETER JESSUP
The Australian title favourites Brisbane will bring their captain Derek Rucker to Auckland despite concerns a knee injury will prevent him playing against the Breakers at the North Shore Events Centre tonight.
Rucker fell heavily in the second quarter of their last game against West Sydney, but is such
an inspiration to the team he was to fly in with them late yesterday.
The Bullets have opened with a tough schedule in the first rounds, playing two games for each of the past five weekends. Last weekend, they beat the Razorbacks away and lost to Cairns at home, before that they beat Melbourne but fell to Hunter.
The big-scoring dangers for the Bullets are American imports Kevin Freeman (forward) and Bobby Brannen (centre), and Boomers guard Stephen Black.
The home team will need to score better than it has all season to stay with the Bullets, and their own import Mike Chappell's influence will be crucial. Chappell appears to be struggling because he has not had the input he did last season.
Coach Frank Arsego believes other teams are piling defence on Chappell and contributing to his scoring decrease, but accepts that some lack of combination is affecting the team performance.
The Breakers have had a disrupted training schedule because of the Wednesday night game in Wollongong and Arsego admitted they were "a bit all over the place" in their run yesterday.
The Breakers sit on the edge of the playoff group and will hand that place to Brisbane should they lose. Then come Melbourne and Cairns in a mid-table maul that may yet determine the Breakers' fortunes for the season.
They need wins at home to maintain their crowd and away to stay in touch with the competition - they are yet to win away this season.
The teams
NZ BREAKERS
Pero Cameron and Paul Henare (co-captains), Ben Pepper, Mike Chappell, Aaron Olson, Dillon Boucher, Shawn Redhage, Ben Thompson, Blake Truslove, Lindsay Tait
BRISBANE BULLETS
Derek Rucker (captain), Bobby Brannen, Kevin Freeman, Ben Castle, Stephen Black, Michael Shaw, Michael Hill, Peni Nasalo, Adam Darragh, Simon Kerle
