Palky‘s Top 5 Favourite Old Red’s Saturday Teams – Number 5 - 2008 Saturday A’s

The 36ers have made their first NBL Finals in 12 years – it has been a long time. We are up against the Perth Wildcats which is my most hated NBL team … I hate Shawn Redhage. Game 2 is in Adelaide on Friday April 11^th. If that seems like it is a familiar date – it is because it is the Lawn Bowls night. So we are cancelling Lawn Bowls so people can go to/watch the game. I am going to try and reschedule. 

If guys are going to the 36ers let me know – we might go to the pub before/after for a drink.

So with the Saturday season getting closer I will start my Top 5 Countdown of my favourite Old Reds Saturday teams. This has started a couple of robust discussions, I have had a few people talk to me about the teams and mention teams that they liked. Phil Harford did a quick scan of the blog post to see if he was in any of the teams that were honourable mentions … he wasn’t mentioned so he didn’t read it. 

Remember – this is my opinion … we have won 20 Saturday titles – I am only listing 5 and mentioning another 8 … some teams will miss out being talked about … like my Saturday C’s team in 2007 where we won the title in the same league that Mike Hill was in when he played for Seaton. We beat his team in the Qualifying Final … I top scored. 

Palky‘s Top 5 Favourite Old Red’s Saturday Teams – Number 5 - 2008 Saturday A’s

The A’s had been in A Grade since 2003. In 2005 they made their 1^st A Grade Grand Final. This was the first year Nic Blair and Chris Donaldson joined the club and ushered in the new wave of youth leading the A’s. They finished 1^st in 2005 after the minor round and made the Grand Final against Hope Valley. Hope Valley crushed the A’s and won by 20 … Flair second top scored. In 2006, Blair and Don started to establish themselves as the key scorers and Ben Darsow came back into the club – 3 big scorers. The A’s had 9 players that year – it was becoming apparent there were not enough shots and not enough minutes to share around. They again finished 1^st after the minor round and lost in a tight struggle against Beaumont – a game they should have won. In 2007, we knew we needed to make a change – there were too many scorers in the A’s and we couldn’t get the chemistry right – the need for scorers and role players. A move to try and rectify this was made by moving some players to the B’s and replace them with more team focussed players … it didn’t work. If I am being honest, I think if we would have been allowed to balanced things up and some individuals put the club ahead of their own interests we might have been able to get our first A Grade title in 2007. After another season where the A’s finished 1^st – they played Hope Valley in the GF. After being up 4 with 12 minutes to go, Blair missed on open dunk to get it out to 6. That shifted momentum and Hope Valley then hit eight3’s in a row in the last 12 minutes and won in a close one. 2008 was when things had to change!

And things did change. 

The A’s lost 4 players - Ryan hurt his knees and had surgery, Donaldson left the club, Darsow was playing golf and stopped playing and Grant moved interstate. Stu who had been in the A’s for a couple of years was given more of the scoring load. Damien Brown was in the E’s in 2007 moved into the A’s to become the X Factor the team needed and they added two new recruits – Andrew Good and Tim Purgacz. Goody has gone on to become a 5 time champion and one of the best 5 centres in club history.  Tim Purgacz was named as one of the 12 best players in the first 20 years of the Old Reds. 

In the 3 previous years – the Old Reds won because they were more talented than anyone … they lost Grand Finals because they were not a team. In 2008 – the A’s won because they had talent, they played tough D and they were a team. Nic was the main scorer and controlled the ball a lot of the time with Stu and Liam became the 2^nd and 3^rd options. If you needed scoring Brownie gave you scoring, if you needed boards Brownie gave you boards, if you needed shooting he would spread the floor … he filled in the gaps week to week. Purge anchored the D, ran the break and gave the team the winning toughness and attitude that was previously missing. Goody and A controlled the glass and the paint and Madman was the perfect 3^rd guy off the bench – in my opinion Madman is the best bench guy we have ever had – he sacrificed so much of his game for this and subsequent teams.  

Oddly for me, I can’t remember what happened in the Grand Final. The A’s beat Beaumont in the Grand Final by 6 points after losing the Qualifying Final to Hope Valley (but won because they played an illegal player). I remember the Grand Final being incredibly satisfying when the A’s won. It has been 4 years to get to this point of winning that title. I think more than anything – this 2008 team set up they template for how we still do everything in the club in all teams. Not just how we structure each team - 2 scorers, 2 big guys, 2 hustle guys and 2 role players – but what it takes to win – chemistry, unselfishness, hustles, defence. 

In 2013, the A’s won their 6^th straight A Grade title … they won in 2013 … because this team won in 2008.  

I like an analogy that I heard once. Some scientist set up an experiment where they put 5 monkeys in a cage. In the cage they put a ladder and at the top of that ladder there was a bunch of bananas. When the monkeys entered the cage they all started climbing over each other to get up the ladder and get the bananas. When they set foot on the ladder the got sprayed with a fire hose. They soon learned that they were not allowed to climb the ladder as they would be sprayed with the fire hose. After they were all conditioned – the scientists replaced one of the monkeys with a new monkey. As soon as this new monkey entered the cage, he saw the bananas and attempted to climb the ladder. The other four monkeys – grabbed the new monkey and beat him. The new monkey didn’t try to climb the ladder again. They then replaced another monkey. The new monkey entered the cage and tried to climb the ladder – they all pulled him down and beat him. One by one they replaced the original monkeys with new monkeys. Each time the new monkey tried to climb the ladder – the other monkeys beat him. After they replaced the original 5^th monkey – only new monkeys remained – yet each time a new monkey entered the cage and attempted to climb the ladder the other monkeys beat him. The point being – the new monkeys had never been sprayed with the hose, they had never known why they couldn’t climb the ladder – it was just learned behaviour. 7 of the 8 players in the A’s in 2013 were not in this 2008 … but the lessons learnt in 2008 are the lesson that are still in place now … and they didn’t have to lose 3 Grand Finals to learn them.  

5. PAOCBC Team Stats 2008
Saturday A's
Player	Games	Points	Pts Avg	FTA	FTM	FT%	3's	Fouls	FO	Hi
Blair	17	310	18.2	92	64	69.6%	29	32	1	40
MacDonald	19	201	10.6	50	31	62.0%	36	50	0	25
Golding L.	17	134	7.9	39	19	48.7%	15	33	0	15
Purgacz	20	100	5.0	60	23	38.3%	3	71	1	8
Brown	14	94	6.7	18	12	66.7%	16	18	0	16
Williams A.	20	67	3.4	26	11	42.3%	0	36	0	12
Good	15	62	4.1	13	2	15.4%	0	44	1	11
Williams M.	18	38	2.1	6	4	66.7%	0	23	0	6
Eley	1	14	14.0	0	0	~	3	0	0	14
Griffiths	2	6	3.0	2	0	0.0%	0	4	0	6
Yates	2	2	1.0	0	0	~	0	2	0	0
Orken	2	2	1.0	0	0	~	0	5	0	2
Jury	1	1	1.0	2	1	50.0%	0	1	0	1
Harford	1	0	0.0	0	0	~	0	1	0	0
Collins	1	0	0.0	0	0	~	0	0	0	0	Low
Totals	22	1031	46.9	308	167	54.2%	102	320	3	75	29
	Opposition	805	36.6							58	23
	First Half	Avg	Second Half	Avg
PAOCBC	493	22.4	544	24.7		Minor Round			Playoffs
Opposition	392	17.8	421	19.1		1st			Champions
	Total	Streak
Wins	17	6
Loss	4	1
Draw	1	1