Melbourne United forced into “The Cage” until final round of NBL season

THEY’VE been attracting bumper crowds all season, but Melbourne United will be forced into a smaller building due to the Australian Open.

A capacity crowd at Hisense arena with an open roof during the NBL Match Melbourne United versus the Perth Wildcats at Hisense arena in Melbourne on Sunday 27th December, 2015. Picture: Mark Dadswell

MELBOURNE United will make the best of its forced move to ‘The Cage’ by creating a cauldron-like atmosphere against the form side of the NBL on Thursday night.

Tennis Australia took over the Melbourne Park precinct from the end of December for the upcoming Australian Open, meaning United will not play at Hisense Arena again until the final round of the season.

The first of its two games at the 3500-seat State Netball and Hockey Centre will be against Illawarra on Thursday night.

The timing is not ideal with Melbourne enjoying big crowds at Hisense Arena this season, including a sold-out game against Perth last month.

But Melbourne co-captain Daniel Kickert said his side plans to use the venue change to its advantage.

“It is disappointing to move away from such a good record at Hisense, but I’m excited to be at the State Netball and Hockey Centre,” Kickert said.

“It’s a good venue and it’s going to be packed out and it will be a tough ticket to get and we’re excited to hopefully get a win there against Illawarra.”

“One really good thing about it is the atmosphere is probably one of the loudest because of the smaller venue.

“Everyone feels like they are right on top of you, so it is a really good atmosphere and we’ll use that to our advantage to hopefully get a win.”

Melbourne is back in town after two strong wins last round over Perth and then Sydney on the road.

Tomorrow night looms as an even bigger test against an Illawarra side boasting the likes of Kirk Penney, Kevin Lisch and AJ Ogilvy.

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Daniel Kickert has been in fine form recently.

“They’re probably the most in-form team at the moment,” Kickert said.

“And we want to slow them down as much as we can towards the end of the season.

“Every win, especially home wins, are valuable, so we want to continue to our progress after the past two games.”

The in-form Kickert is coming off a 26-point game against Sydney, in which he shot a sizzling 10 from 10 from the field, including three triples.

“It was really good and I honestly didn’t grasp the fact that I was knocking down every single shot,” he said.

“It didn’t really click, but it is good to look back and see that I was efficient to help the team at that end of the floor.”

Originally published as Melbourne United forced into “The Cage” until final round of NBL season