{"id":22206,"date":"2021-06-18T16:53:30","date_gmt":"2021-06-18T06:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basketball.draftcentral.com.au\/?p=22206"},"modified":"2021-06-18T16:53:30","modified_gmt":"2021-06-18T06:53:30","slug":"close-knit-frankston-blues-thrive-on-club-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/close-knit-frankston-blues-thrive-on-club-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"“Close-knit” Frankston Blues thrive on club culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWE\u2019VE got a group group of guys here at Frankston and a great culture at the club, right down to the juniors and everything like that. It\u2019s pretty close-knit.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Starting his basketball career where he grew up in Tasmania with the North West Thunder, guard Lachlan Barker<\/strong><\/a> worked his way through the State Basketball league (SBL), then becoming a development player for the Sydney Kings in the NBL1 before the Blue reached out and he headed to Frankston.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite last year\u2019s season being cancelled due to COVID-19, the Blues Men\u2019s team has had a good start to the 2021 season, currently sitting in second place on the ladder after the first nine rounds. Barker says the missed season helped to grow his enthusiasm for the sport.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely gives you a bit more of a passion for it, you know. You sort of get, I guess, a bit complacent with it all, like it\u2019s just sort of always there and you can always do it, but when it\u2019s taken away you realise how much you enjoy it and miss it if you\u2019re not doing it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With Melbourne recently going back into a snap lockdown, the team have been trying to keep up their motivation in order not to lose that winning momentum they are on.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve still been talking even though we haven\u2019t been able to train and see each other as such, we\u2019ve still been doing all of our individual parts like keeping fit and staying active while we can\u2019t train together,\u201d Barker says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, we\u2019ve been doing a few Zoom sessions\u2026 so we still stay involved and connected, and yeah I think we will come out the other side still firing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Barker believes the Blues are in a good position look forward to the rest of the season, with their training reflecting that.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to play fast, we want to be up tempo, and be really good on the defensive end. So we know we\u2019ve got a lot of talented guys and we can score the ball, but if we lock down at one end we sort of feel like we can\u2019t be beaten,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWinning comes first and then all the individual stuff kind of comes second in my opinion, so yeah that\u2019s the main goal just to get as far as we can and hopefully that\u2019s the championship.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Also in a good position for a championship is the Blues women\u2019s NBL1 team, who are currently undefeated this season. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think for us it\u2019s very realistic to go finals and then who knows what can happen from there. I think we as a group have a really great coaching staff as well, so I think anything is really possible for us,\u201d says Frankston Blues guard and Australian Opal, Tessa Lavey<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

With her extensive list of accolades, including playing the WNBL for Bendigo Spirit, playing for Richmond in the AFLW, and representing Australia in 2016 at Rio and set to attend the Tokyo Olympics with the Opals, how did Lavey end up at the Frankston Blues?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI guess it\u2019s just an off-season league for us from the WNBL,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI know Snelly [head coach Belinda Snell<\/strong><\/em>] really well, I\u2019ve played with her before, and she also does the Opal\u2019s plays, so me trying to get to Tokyo, that\u2019s obviously a bonus for me knowing the plays inside and out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Similar to the men\u2019s team, Lavey and her team and trying to keep the momentum up for the rest of the season and keep their eye on the prize. Head coach Snell, former Australian Opal, Olympic Silver Medallist and 2021 WNBL Championship Assistant Coach, has been focusing on defence as a key skill in training.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think, you know we always focus on our defence, because we believe that\u2019s a strong suit of ours, our defence and our communication. So then we just create some chemistry on our offensive end too, but we want our defence to create our offence, I think that\u2019s the goal that Snelly is trying to drill into us which is really good,\u201d Lavey says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s plenty of great people there to get the job done, and I think we can do that and Snelly is going to lead the way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Picture credit:<\/strong> NBL1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWE\u2019VE got a group group of guys here at Frankston and a great culture at the club, right down to the juniors and everything like that. It\u2019s pretty close-knit.\u201d Starting his basketball career where he grew up in Tasmania with the North West Thunder, guard Lachlan Barker worked his way through the State Basketball league […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":22234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[903,2555,2560,2871],"tags":[171,5241,1514,2848,205],"class_list":["post-22206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nbl1","category-nbl1-south","category-nbl1-south-w","category-news","tag-belinda-snell","tag-frankston-blue","tag-lachlan-barker","tag-opals","tag-tessa-lavey"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}