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After a much talked about shocker start to the season, and an equally talked about winning streak, the Townsville Crocs had clawed their way back into finals contention for their round 21 clash with the Sydney Kings.
The match-up against the Kings was billed as do or die for both teams in terms of finals contention.
After a narrow loss to Cairns Taipans the week before, the Townsville Crocs were looking to keep their season on track.
All looked good in the first seconds of the game, with the Crocs winning the tip off and exchanging a flurry of passes for Todd Blanchfield to slot the first points of the game with ease.
It was the second offensive play that told the story though.
With the Kings missing their first chance, Townsville again were on the offense, securing a two point break.
After another quick flurry of passes, Todd Blanchfield, with his confidence high from his last scoring shot, took a shot which rimmed out.
From there, it was all the Kings. Not again in the match did the Crocs lead.
It looked to me as if their confidence was shot, and they were not up to the game.
At each quarter they were seemingly out of contention, not only on scoreboard, but on attitude.
The first quarter was 21-15 to the Kings, quarter two was 46-34 to the Kings, quarter three was 66-41 to the Kings, and the final score, and embarrassing 83-67, going the Kings way.
You could say Peter Crawford showed some leadership with a 22 point high, but the Crocs needed more than a steady scoring game from the big man, and it just wasn’t their day.
A team, an individual sportsperson, they can have bad days where the game goes against them and where they feel flat.
However, champions are the ones who can take these bad days, adapt, and resort to their basics and survive.
This was not the case for the Crocs. It usually takes some leadership, someone, whether it the coach, the captain, or just an individual to instigate this survival tactic and inner fight.
These are the hardest times for fans, when your team doesn’t fight to win.
In the Crocs case, my gut feeling is that the individual players wanted the win, they just didn’t know how to fight for it, especially as a team.
And now, Townsville Crocs fans will be looking forward to next season.
Hopefully the team can put together a decent pre-season, and work as a team. They will need to prepare for matches like this one, knowing they will need to learn to dig deep.
Of course, the fans at The Swamp will be ready to cheer come next year.
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