BBL Championship: Cheshire Jets 74 Worthing Thunder 67

Oct 10 2010 by Alec Doyle, Chester Chronicle

A TOUGH 40 minutes for the Jets ended with Paul Smith's side registering their second successive victory in the Championship, but they continue to make life harder than it needs to be on the court.

As the weeks go on it is increasingly apparent just how much talent Jets head coach Smith has at his disposal, but also that they have a lot of maturing to do to if they are to mount a lasting title challenge.

Short on the bench due to a fixture clash that took Phil Brandreth, assistant coach Richard Murphy, Neil Gillard and Ryan Gallagher to Leeds in the EBL National Cup, the Jets opened against a snarling Thunder with eight points in two minutes prompting early hopes of a rout.

It wasn't to be as the Thunder used their experience to keep themselves in the game and frustrate the Jets.

Colin O'Reilly kept the scoreboard ticking over in the early stages as Matt Schneck and Jeremy Bell whipped the crowd up with some classy interchanges that resulted in a neat lay-up and a flashy dunk.

The game was littered with moments like that, moments of skill and vision that, had there been more of them, would have made this a much higher-scoring affair at the Northgate Arena.

But it was balanced out by the throwing away of possession, occasional lack of work-rate in defence and other small mistakes that Smith attributes to the youth of his squad.

Calvin Davis, the team veteran, contributed more in the tricky middle periods than he had to date this season as he gets over his injury worries but it was cameo appearances by Stephen Gayle that once more lit up the court.

As his team-mates misfired, Gayle provided a measure of consistency with his scoring that kept the Jets in front at crucial times.

By the end of the third period there were still only eight points in it and only in the last five minutes did the Jets finally take control and take the game away from the Thunder.

They were helped when Mansour Mbeye was fouled out of the game for the short-benched Thunder and the Jets finished off with pace as they outplayed and outmuscled their opponents.

Such was the frustration of the Thunder that guard James Brame, who had come off worse in a physical battle with the Jets' Matt Schneck, took a cheap shot on the buzzer to floor the rookie.

Afterwards Paul Smith said: "We are pleased with the win. We played some great basketball and some terrible basketball and we are still working on making the great stuff happen more often than the bad stuff.

"But this is the youngest team I have ever coached and it is easy to forget that. They need a leader on the court and we are encouraging them to do that for themselves but it will take time.

"Colin (O'Reilly) is the captain and he is doing a lot more speaking on-court but I have asked a lot of him and he has only been a pro himself for a couple of seasons, but they are getting there."