We'll bounce back say Breakers' management

Struggling at the bottom of the NBL ladder, some bickering within the team, the coach under the microscope and crowd numbers falling - yet Breakers management remain adamant they feel no pressure.

The critical issue, of course, is credibility, because with that goes lucrative TV contracts and sponsorship deals, merchandising and, ultimately, their place in the league.

"We don't think our credibility is yet called into question," said chairman Keith Ward, a self-made Cambridge businessman who is one of three owners.

They have three wins from 10, but Ward said talk that coach Frank Arsego was about to go "is just hilarious".

Surely, though, if wins don't come there must be a time when everything from coach to players to management has to be scrutinised and/or changed?

"We've lost a couple of games. So what? If we lost 10 more you'd start to look and go, `Hang on, what's going on here.' But there won't be any quick changes.

"In the end, though, Frank [coach Arsego] is accountable, as are all the players, and the board has the intestinal fortitude to make tough decisions if required."

Neither Ward nor fellow owners/board members Dallas Fisher and Hamilton mayor Michael Redman have any major background in basketball. In Ward's case, he "wanted something to talk about at the dinner table that wasn't going to bore the pants off my kids."

Recently remarried after his first wife died of cancer, he has found that the game is more acceptable to both genders than the boys-only contact sports or the girls' sports that don't attract their partners. And he loves beating Australia.

What he and his fellow owners were looking at when they formed the franchise was basketball's position as second-biggest sport in the world behind soccer. He's clear where the future lies.

"Asia. That's where the money and crowds are, the TV rights. We're going to add zeroes to this business," he announces confidently.

The trio regarded their foray into basketball as a five-year start-up. Ward said they were already ahead of the hoped-for market awareness and profile continued to build. There are plans to put development officers in local schools and to build relationships in the community. "It's going to take time but in a couple of years we will have a fan base as parochial as that in Townsville or Cairns."

But the fans want a winning team, right? "We can't make that happen," Ward said. "As a person, I can't do anything if the Breakers lose their next five games. I can't get on the court."

And they weren't about to start suggesting fixes to Arsego, he said. "The board never gets involved in anything that happens on the court.

"At this stage we're going through a blip. We went through one last year, became a good team and finished within a point of being the first team to make the playoffs in their first season. The table this season is tight - we got two wins and we were fifth, we lose two games and we're last, but we're positive."

So it's status quo, for the time being, anyway.

Arsego said last week that it was his job to take the pressure off the players. Right now, it's more their job to take the pressure off him. Losses in Melbourne against the Tigers tonight, and at home against the Townsville Crocodiles on Sunday, would pile more on.