NBL1 season preview: Injury-ravaged Hobart Chargers aiming high

The Hobart Chargers women’s team hopes to put a pre-season plagued by injury and unavailability behind them in their season-opening intrastate derby. SEASON PREVIEW >>

IT’S been a difficult pre-season for the Hobart Chargers women’s team, plagued by injury and unavailability, but coach Mark Nash still hopes to compete for the NBL1 championship this year.

The Chargers begin their NBL1 season with an intrastate derby against the Launceston Tornadoes at the Kingborough Sports Centre on Saturday.

Hobart won’t be at full strength for the first match of the campaign, with Sharna Thompson and Josie Greenwood missing through injury.

Hobart Chargers women's coach Mark Nash. Picture: Zak Simmonds

“Pre-season has been a challenge this year, we’ve had really good numbers as far as having players in Hobart,” Nash said.

“Our local calibre of players has been excellent coming through, but we’ve really been hit hard with injury, so it’s been very disrupted for us, having more players, unfortunately, on the sideline than on the court.

“But the excitement of game one sort of overrules that and overrides that and we’re looking forward to getting the group together and getting on court.”

The Chargers are also sweating on the arrival of star US import Kathleen Scheer, who is still in the USA due to travel restrictions.

Nash said the club was working hard to get to Scheer to Hobart and he is “very confident” she will be here inside the first third of the season. However, he said there is a chance she might not come at all if another COVID-19 outbreak occurs.

Kathleen Scheer remains stuck in the US because of travel restrictions. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

“There would be a two-week quarantine period in the port that we could fly her into, so, realistically we’re probably looking three or four weeks best case for Kathleen to be on the court,” he said.

He said other clubs in the conference were in the same boat with imports due to border restrictions.

Nash said the team hadn’t set any goals for the season as a group.

“For me, I’ve been saying from day one, coming back in as coach, that we want to put a team on the court that can compete for a championship,” he said.

“We have had those challenges in the pre-season, we won’t have our full team with us for game one, so the first month is going to be tricky for us, but still our overall ambition is to be able to compete every week and hopefully put ourselves in a good position towards the end of the season to be in the running as a contender.”

He said as coach, the most pleasing element of pre-season had been watching local junior players step up to the Chargers’ senior program.

Chargers ‘stoked’ to sign Roberts

THE Hobart Chargers have secured the services of former WNBL rookie of the year Tayla Roberts for the 2021 NBL1 season.

The 28-year-old Tasmanian most recently played for the Hobart Huskies in 2019 and had signed with the Chargers in 2020 before the season was scrapped.

Tayla Roberts playing for the Hobart Huskies. Picture: MATT THOMPSON

Chargers coach Mark Nash said it was “great to have Tayla locked in” ahead of Saturday’s season-opening match against the Launceston Tornadoes.

“Tayla’s a real force in this competition, and has really come into pre-season in great shape, and we’re looking forward to seeing her dominate this year,” Nash said.

“We’re absolutely stoked to have Tayla, she’s been around this level of competition almost for the last decade.

“She’s a WNBL rookie of the year, she’s played at the AIS, she’s played right across the country, junior Australian teams.

“I really think she can be the best player in her position in the competition.”

Nash said Roberts has been playing in the North West Basketball Union for the past eight weeks.

“Pleasingly for our round one opener, she’s been playing against a lot of Tornadoes players, so yeah, they’ve had a bit of a look at her, but there will be a lot of familiar faces for Tayla when she hits the court on Saturday night,” he said.

In July 2018, Roberts announced she was making the move into AFLW having signed with North Melbourne as an open age rookie, but later in the year pulled out to focus primarily on basketball.

With Maddie Garrick, who most recently played for the Melbourne Boomers in the WNBL, to join the team on Thursday, Nash is happy with the way Hobart’s squad is coming together.

“We do still have a couple of spots available, and there’s still the injury management side of things, so we’re looking at filling the team for this week a little differently than perhaps we would have if everyone had been available, but certainly I’m pleased and I’m comfortable with where we’ve landed,” he said.