Chargers get their chance to takeon nation’s best

THIS weekend’s exhibition game between the Surf Coast Chargers and Australian Goannas will not only serve as a great tune-up for both teams but also as an important community event.

Surfcoast Basketball Association is excited to host the Australian men’s national deaf basketball team tomorrow (Saturday, February 8) at Wurdi Baierr Stadium.

The Goannas, who are preparing for the Deaflympics in Japan in November, will take on the Chargers youth league men’s outfit with tip-off at 4pm.

Goannas coach Brent Reid, who is Torquay-based, said he believed it was the first exhibition game the Chargers and Goannas had played against each other.

“I think there have been a couple of scrimmages, but I don’t think we’ve had an official game,” he said.

“We really wanted to have a practice game just so the guys who have come back from two months break over Christmas and January are ready to go [ahead of the Deaflympics].”

Reid said the Goannas would host a skills clinic for children aged between 8 and 13 at 2pm.

“For some kids, this will be their first interaction with a deaf or hard-of-hearing person so [it’s] knocking down some of those barriers so people can interact and [learn] a bit more about what day-to-day life is as a deaf person,” he said.

 

“We all just want to play basketball; you can be deaf or hard-of-hearing and still love the game and play the game at an elite level.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re deaf, hard-of-hearing or mainstream, you’ve still got to work hard to achieve your goals.”

While there are no Surf Coast representatives in the Goannas team at the moment, Reid said there was a trio of SBA players involved in the Goannas about three years ago.

Youth league men’s coach Greg Smith said his team couldn’t wait to play the Goannas and have a solid hit-out ahead of their Big V season starting in March.

He said SBA established under-23 youth league men’s and women’s teams in recent years to create a clearer pathway to senior basketball.