Cheshire Jets: Bill Cole confident despite disappointing start

Oct 6 2011 by Alec Doyle, Chester Chronicle

BILL Cole may be starting out on his rookie season, but he understands the game well enough not to be too concerned about the Jets double defeat and their mystery opponents this Sunday.

The 21-year-old forward from Peoria, Illinois, has made a solid start to his pro career in the BBL, in among the top scorers in both Jets games last weekend despite spending his college career as a specialist defensive player.

As details of the Mersey Tigers line-up for Sunday begin leaking out, Cole is focusing on maintaining his own start.

“Coach Lavery has told me I’ve got to be a contributor on offence this season,” he said.

“I’ve been trying to be assertive and help my team-mates wherever possible and just letting them know I can be a go-to guy if it comes to it.

“It feels like we’ve got a great chemistry already, we just need a couple more practices to get the whole offence and defence in and I think we’ll be all right.”

Cole was impressed with the standard of the BBL, having come up against one of the favourites to win silverware this season, Atiba Lyons’ Sheffield Sharks.

“It’s good competition,” said Cole. “You can tell Sheffield Sharks are a good team that have played together for a while and they’re big inside.

“We’ve got little things to adjust but we’ve only been together for about two weeks so we can only get better from here.”

For some time, there were fears Sunday’s opponents the Mersey Tigers may fold as rumours of their financial trouble grew and the club postponed the start of their season.

As a result, the Tigers have played no pre-season games and Lavery has been unable to scout them.

“At the moment you know as much as I do,” said the head coach.

“The Tigers have a game tomorrow night and I will be able to have a look at them then and formulate a plan but really we are still concentrating on getting our blend right.”

That message was echoed by Cole who said the mystery surrounding the Tigers is not a problem.

“The coaches have told us that at this point in the season it’s all about us,” he said.

“Eventually we’ll start worrying about scouting reports but if we control what we control this coming weekend we’ll be ok.”