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Titans Admit Mcdonald Holds Key To Title

Posted: Wed Oct 7, 1998 at 10:19 AM ET

The success of the Victoria Titans in their inaugural NBL season rests heavily on the shoulders of heralded point guard Darryl McDonald, according to coach Brian Goorjian. Following the marriage of South East Melbourne and North Melbourne, Goorjian has his dream team but said the Achilles heel of the premiership favourite was not having a back-up for McDonald. "We have no back-up for him, but in every other position we have great depth," Goorjian said. "So it's important D-Mac stays healthy and has a good year." When coach of the Magic, Goorjian was crying out for a genuine point guard. Now McDonald, the league's leading basketball pilferer, is at his disposal so is zone defence, which North Melbourne coach Brett Brown surprisingly won a championship with in 1994. Goorjian has been obsessed with defence, man-to-man mainly, but now he will engage the zone because of McDonald and promised a more attacking style. "In the offensive end, we will push it up and it will look a lot better because he (McDonald) is playing that spot," Goorjian said. "If the pre-season is any gauge we have definitely been scoring more points. "With the depth and the players we have it has to be more high octane. Our strength is going to be our eighth, ninth and 10th players. "If we play a style where all you need is five players then we won't be as good as we can be and as hard to beat. "You don't need to be a genius to play zone or man-to-man, you need to have the players and we have them."

The late and slow process of the merger left the Titans with less time to prepare for the summer season than any other team. Co-captain Tony Ronaldson said it was only three weeks ago that the whole side trained together for the first time. "With the merger a lot was unknown, and we couldn't start pre-season and Brian didn't even know of he would get the job," Ronaldson said. "We didn't have everyone at the one practice session until we played our first pre-season match about three weeks ago. "Without a doubt it's the shortest pre-season playing as a team." The Titans opening match is against Melbourne this Saturday night at Melbourne Park, while their first home game is the following weekend against financially troubled Canberra.



*This article taken directly from the AAP