CT
Years ago
QBL: Marlins title run vs Taipans preseason?
Jordan Gerrans (he of the 'NBA in Australia a pointless waste of time' story a few weeks ago) was at it again the Cairns Post this morning.
I'm not going to link to the article as it's behind a paywall but the main point of his piece was to question the impact that the Taipans/Marlins relationship has had on the Marlins chances of a second consecutive QBL title. In particular, he makes the point that the way in which certain players such as Weigh and Kuany were slotted into the squad mid-season (presumably to get them fit and ready for the NBL season) affected their chances of a legit top 4 finish and limited the minutes of non-NBL players for whom a QBL title would be a career highlight. Also that the heavy preseason schedule in the week leading up to the semi in Townsville left the players worn out before a crucial game they could and should have won.
Just like his other article that got discussed on here, this seems to have been written in a very clickbaity way and seems to feed off of some of the worst of the anti-Fearne rhetoric you sometimes hear from Cairns Basketball diehards. A lot of his arguments are parochial and tenuous; he glosses over the very substantial contributions that Weigh and Kuany made for example; there area a few games that the Marlins wouldn't have won without these two putting up 25 pts between them. I think his argument also seriously underestimates the Townsville Heat and the level of the QBL as a whole.
That said, he does make a couple of interesting points. In particualr, why did most of the Marlins squad play Friday night against Texas when they had a 5-hour drive to Townsville and a crucial semi the next day? In particular, why did Heuir and Weigh both play, despite Fearne publicly announcing that they wouldn't?
Any other Taipans fans read this and want to Weigh in? (boom-tish)
