The Examiner's Rob Shaw, Josh Partridge and Ben Hann unpack and discuss the sports news across Northern Tasmania. Video by Aaron Smith and Paul Scambler (2/4/24)
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00:00 Welcome to episode 46 of the Pressbox, the Examiners weekly sportscast.
00:04 We haven't quite got the whole band back together but we do welcome Josh back from a sorted
00:08 end of cricket season celebration.
00:10 So try and keep them yawning to a minimum if you can Josh.
00:13 We can't start anywhere else than the Jackjumpers winning the NBL Grand Final Series.
00:18 They eventually won it 3-2, coming back to win the last game.
00:22 We were just, we've written a lot of stories about it in the last couple of days and we
00:26 were just reflecting on after the first game which was a 23 point margin to Melbourne United,
00:32 the next four games were 5 points, 2 points, 2 points and 2 points and those last three
00:37 games were decided by last second Hail Mary shots on the halfway line.
00:42 Rather fitting for the Easter weekend wasn't it?
00:44 Yes, absolutely.
00:45 So what do you make of it?
00:46 You've been following it all weekend, what do you make of it Ben?
00:48 Yeah, I think it's, from a first layer neutral perspective, it's going to go down as maybe
00:53 the greatest ever championship series in NBL history.
00:56 It was just remarkable basketball being played for a week long.
01:01 Obviously there's that caveat barring the first game, it was very clear the Jackjumpers
01:05 were very tired but from there, Jackjumpers in all three wins were down by double figures
01:10 at one stage or another and then you look at the game that they lost where Jack McVay's
01:15 Hail Mary shot rimmed out, they should have won that game.
01:17 They were up by five with just over three minutes remaining.
01:22 It was so hard to write match reports about because you don't know what's going to happen
01:25 next and you can't plan for the result because quite literally it was going down to the very
01:30 last second.
01:31 So I think as a fan and as a reporter, as anyone, you can't not love what you've just
01:39 seen over the last week.
01:40 Yeah, you're the only Tasmanian born member of the panel.
01:43 Josh, what did you make of it all?
01:45 I was sitting there and you watch the start of the game and you go, "Oh my goodness, this
01:48 could be a blood bath."
01:50 Down 16-6, we couldn't get anywhere near the basket.
01:53 But no, the comeback, just the whole thing, it's just fantastic.
01:58 There's going to have to be a movie about it one day.
02:02 And who's going to play Scott Roth?
02:03 Who's going to be the handsome devil?
02:05 But no, it was just unbelievable and legitimately you probably couldn't actually script it better
02:12 than what actually happened.
02:13 There are two people, Rob, I can get you to talk about a bit more, that need special credit
02:18 for this series, beyond Scott Roth, obviously, overall.
02:23 But there's Jack McVay for the Work He Done All series, and then you've got Jordan Crawford
02:28 for that inspired first half, really, that quite literally carried the Jackjumpers level
02:33 at half-time.
02:34 What did you, I suppose, make of having an Australian player and an American player be
02:39 so influential?
02:41 It was kind of nice that they didn't have to rely on the same person every game, when
02:44 you've got one person carrying a side.
02:46 And that wasn't the case at Melbourne United, but they were significantly less when Chris
02:50 Golding wasn't on the court.
02:52 So I'm not saying they were a one-man side, they're not, they're far better than that,
02:55 but they did rely heavily on Golding.
02:58 It was lovely that when McVay wasn't quiet in game five, but he wasn't his blistering
03:02 self, and yet somebody else stands up and scores as many points as Jordan Crawford did.
03:07 Yeah, I mean, look, he's that sort of firecracker of a player, he's on or he's not, and he hasn't
03:13 been on for a good two or three months.
03:15 He's really struggled with Milton Doyle, and he thought, well, with those who don't perform,
03:19 you can't rely on Jack McVay solely.
03:21 But five from five, from deep, 19 points in the first quarter, it was just, you couldn't
03:27 believe what you were watching.
03:28 It was fantastic as well.
03:29 As you can tell through the broadcast, he's a heavily religious man, and for it to happen
03:34 on Sunday was brilliant.
03:36 It was meant to be.
03:38 And it obviously begged the question straight afterwards, a lot of people were asking, where
03:41 does this sit in Tasmanian sporting history?
03:44 And in terms of sporting, it's good fodder for columns, but in terms of Tasmanian success
03:52 in sport, you straight away think of individual success, such as Michael Grender winning our
03:56 first Olympic gold medal, Ariane Titmuss winning two gold medals, and our first individual
04:01 ones.
04:02 But in terms of team sport, it would have to be up there with the first Sheffield Shield
04:06 win.
04:07 And I wrote a column today about looking back on when we won the Gillette Cup in '78, '79,
04:12 and comparing Scott Loth to Jack Simmons, who was kind of, he came in from England,
04:20 and he kind of convinced Tasmania that they shouldn't just be in the competition, they
04:26 should be trying to win it.
04:27 And there's a lot of similarity between that mentality and what Scott Loth's done.
04:30 Yeah, that was a fantastic column to read, obviously being a bit younger.
04:34 I knew of Jack, but not really to the extent of what you touched on.
04:41 So to be able to see that and compare the two was really quite interesting, actually.
04:45 So well done, Rob.
04:46 Thank you, Josh.
04:47 Which gives me the opportunity to lead on to your biggest story of the week.
04:50 So moving on to State League footy.
04:52 So you went to Windsor Park on Friday, a little bit one-sided, Josh?
04:55 Yeah, a little bit.
04:58 So for those who don't know, North Launceston defeated Launceston to the tune of 24-23,
05:04 167-055.
05:05 So rather one-sided, funnily enough.
05:10 So the Adam Sanders medal, which is the best player on the ground in their first game of
05:14 the year, went to Harvey Griffiths.
05:15 He kicked six.
05:16 Three of which were in the first quarter, and he was just electric.
05:20 He's actually a former Lonnie player, so it was kind of fitting to have him win it.
05:24 But others who impressed were Fletcher Bennett in backline, Michael Stingle on return.
05:29 And then for Lonnie, slim pickings, but Seth Pfeiffer was really impressive through the
05:35 middle.
05:36 He was stabbed in Melbourne two or three weeks ago, and has obviously recovered from that
05:42 and was fantastic, as was Lucas Wooten and Brodie Powerfrom in there, captain, as you
05:48 come to expect.
05:49 I suppose, you read the scoreline, no goals, conceding 150.
05:55 Is this, what do we read into this?
05:57 Is this North Launceston being really, really good?
06:00 Is this Launceston not being a competitive team this year?
06:04 Is this just a derby?
06:05 Derbys can often mix up weird results.
06:07 What do you take out of it?
06:09 Thorpey was very, after the game he said, "Look, I don't think I prepared my players
06:14 for the physicality that the Round 1 game, and especially the derby presents."
06:18 So he just said they weren't ready.
06:21 And to be honest, I think they are, well they're obviously a better team than what they put
06:25 out in the park, but I don't think they're going to be that bad.
06:28 I think they're going to be competitive, and that certainly wasn't competitive.
06:33 The stat that he brought up was Launceston only had 39 handball receipts for the entire
06:37 game.
06:38 That's pitiful.
06:39 And North Launceston had 134, which you'd expect to be pretty regulation numbers.
06:46 So yeah, I imagine they will be competitive, and I think North have shown that they are
06:54 going to be up there again, which they were grand finalists last year, so it's no breaking
06:59 news.
07:00 But yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what happens past this.
07:03 Sorry, just quickly, are you concerned about Launceston?
07:08 No.
07:09 I think Thorpe is a good enough operator.
07:13 I think they definitely don't have the cattle that they've once had, but I think give them
07:19 four or five games and a few good enough performances in there, there will be belief within the
07:24 group and they will foster something that, while it won't be what they have been before,
07:29 it will be okay.
07:31 And moving on finally to state league soccer.
07:34 It was cup weekend over Easter weekend, Lacusse Eldrick Cup and Women's Statewide Cup.
07:40 All three Launceston men's sides played.
07:44 Launceston United's frustrating season continues.
07:46 They lost 7-0 at home to Kingborough.
07:49 Riverside beat Hobart United 4-1, which they should do.
07:52 They're a Southern Championship side, but Hobart United had beaten Riverside in the
07:55 competition last year.
07:56 But the result of the day, without a doubt, was Launceston City beating South Hobart 2-1,
08:02 which is a superb result because South Hobart are one of the best sides in the state.
08:05 City fully deserved to.
08:06 It was a cracking game.
08:07 I managed to go to that game and then went on to the Riverside game afterwards.
08:11 Daniel Murfit scored their first goal after 26 minutes and their import striker Thierry
08:15 Swabie scored the second after 35, after Berezinski had given South Hobart the lead.
08:20 Cracking game.
08:21 City finished the game with 10 men after they had a player sent off, but that is an eye-catching
08:25 result and probably the best result in Daniel Sison's coaching career.
08:29 I had a quick chat with him afterwards.
08:31 It's about time we had some audios back in the podcast.
08:34 I think here's what Daniel had to say afterwards.
08:36 That's brilliant, but we're only still into the quarterfinal.
08:39 So it's, yeah, I think they all mean something when you win, but that was, yeah, for the
08:44 work and the battle they put in it was brilliant.
08:46 So big weekend in statewide soccer.
08:48 I suppose, you know, obviously the result speaks for itself, but what were you most
08:52 impressed about by how they performed in terms of just getting that result?
08:58 How quickly they've bonded as a team.
09:00 It's a very different looking City side to what I saw last season and they were playing
09:05 against good opposition.
09:06 So you could say the same about Riverside Olympic.
09:09 It's a very different side, but they were playing against a lower division side.
09:13 For City to do that against Ken Morton's big guns, that's a really big result for them.
09:17 And I suppose it's been a fairly turbulent off-season for soccer and women's and men's
09:21 soccer in Tasmania.
09:23 Does this sort of help, I don't know, give you a bit more positivity within Northern
09:29 soccer that, you know, actually things are going to look not as bad as potentially it
09:32 could have looked this year?
09:33 I hope so.
09:34 I guess we'll only know the answer to that when the statewide competitions really get
09:38 going.
09:39 They're only a week in, or one round in I should say.
09:43 And it'll be interesting to see how they start going against the big guns, especially Devonport
09:46 and the Southern sides.
09:48 But to get a winner over a big side this early in the season is good for Northern soccer.
09:53 I hope it can continue.
09:55 That's wrapping up a huge weekend for Tasmanian sport.
09:58 Arguably the biggest ever, so we've been told.
10:01 So thanks for tuning in and see you again next week.
10:03 Thank you.
10:04 [END]