Rollers Ready for Title Defence

The Australian men’s wheelchair basketball team has warmed up for its Paralympic title defence at the London 2012 Games, with a 54-40 win over Columbia at the Lee Valley basketball stadium.

The Rollers were represented by four WAIS scholarship holders with Brad Ness, Justin Eveson, Shaun Norris and Michael Hartnett all on court for the Paralympic and World Champions.

In their last practise match before the Games begin, the Rollers were at times scrappy, but did enough to win each quarter and stretch away for a 14 point win.

Columbia was the only team in the London Paralympic draw that the Rollers had never faced off against, and the opportunity to familiarise themselves ahead of competition only added to their impressive preparation.

Rollers head coach Ben Ettridge handed starts to Jannik Blair, Michael Hartnett, Brett Stibners, Bill Latham and Tristan Knowles but they came against a spirited Columbian outfit who made a real fight of the opening quarter.

The Australians’ superior squad depth began to tell in the second half though, as the likes of Justin Eveson, Brad Ness, Nicholas Taylor and Shaun Norris began to turn the score board over, and the defence kept their South American counterparts to just 16 second half points.

2008 Beijing gold medallist Michael Hartnett said the match had taken on a roller coaster course, with both sides ironing out kinks in the final lead-up for London.

“It was a scrappy match,” Hartnett said. ” These can be danger games, we didn’t know much about them, and they’re relaxed and happy to be here, so they played with no pressure.”

“It’s good to get another hit-out and now we’ll go back and see what we can learn from that,” he said.

The Australians will play their opening match of the London 2012 Paralympic Games on Thursday, against South Africa.