John Coffino believes that his Cheshire Phoenix side have all the necessary ingredients to cook up a storm in the BBL.
Coffino watched his side put in a dominant performance against high-flying Worcester Wolves on Sunday , registering a 97-86 triumph and their seventh successive win.
With his side on a roll in the league and both their offence and defence firing on all cylinders, Coffino believes the rest of the BBL are now sitting up to take notice of the Northgate Arena club.
“I think what we have found now is that we have all the right ingredients,” said the Nix head coach. “If you have the right ingredients and spend the time to get the flavour right then what you have is a wonderful meal.
“We know we’re still not the finished article and we’re still working hard and keeping on trying to improve, but I think that we are beginning to see the fruits of all our hard work.”
The Nix endured an indifferent start to the season as imports such as Brad Karp and Aleek Pauline failed to live up to their billing in the early stages and a number of roster changes, some enforced through the departure of players including Gareth Murray, saw Coffino forced to return to the drawing board once more.
But now they have a strong squad 10 deep, which has been strengthened with the recent arrivals of Simeon Naydenov, Paul Sturgess and Adrien Sturt.
Despite such a turnover of players, Coffino believes that morale among his troops has never been an issue and their carmeraderie at present is one of the reasons for success.
“The morale among the guys is great at present and they all get along and play for each other as a group,” he said. “But they are still fierce competitors and all of them have the will to win, which is what you need to succeed. You can see that from them even in practice.”
The Nix take on another one of the BBL big guns this weekend when they welcome London Lions, the last team to beat Coffino’s men, to the Northgate Arena on Sunday (5.30pm).
Current Nix players Sturt and Joel Barkers have both turned out for Vince Macauley’s Lions in the last 12 months and will face off against their former employers as Cheshire go in search of win number eight on the spin.
Coffino said: “London were the last team to beat us and we want to go out their and set that straight.
“It seems a long time ago now and we have improved as a unit and gotten a lot stronger since then so we will be a different proposition for them and we’ll be going for the W once again.”
