WHILE the majority of the Joondalup Wolves are SBL championship winners, Reece Maxwell and Rhys Smyth are two who were part of the 2013 Grand Final loss but didn't hit the floor in the triumphs of 2011 and 2015, and coach Ben Ettridge sees the hunger in their eyes to change that.

Seb Salinas and Damian Matacz have played in the SBL championships for the Wolves both in 2011 and 2015 while Kevin Davis, Joel Questel, Rob Huntington, Jordan Wellsteed, Sean Easther and Trian Iliadis were all there last year now looking to win back-to-back titles.

However, two players who have played plenty of basketball with the Wolfpack but yet to be on the court to taste that championship glory are Smyth and Maxwell.

Both played in the 2013 Grand Final loss to the Lakeside Lightning before both missed playing in 2015 – with Smyth taking a break from the game and Maxwell trying his hand at Australian Rules football having taken part in the television show The Recruit and playing at WAFL club Claremont.

The Wolves are now one win away from another Grand Final appearance after beating the Willetton Tigers in Game 1 of the semi-final series last Saturday night at Joondalup Basketball Stadium 122-103.

Week 1 Men's SBL Semi Final wrap 

The Wolfpack now plays the Tigers in Game 2 this Friday night at Willetton Basketball Stadium and if they win they are straight through to next Saturday's Grand Final. A loss and it's back to Joondalup Basketball Stadium on Saturday night for a deciding Game 3.

Ettridge has noticed all season long just how desperate Smyth and Maxwell are to be part of a championship with the Wolves given the club has won two in the past five years that they weren’t part of.

And in Saturday night's win over Willetton, Smyth gave some handy minutes off the bench nailing a three and dishing out an assist while Maxwell was on fire with 12 points in the first quarter on his way to 23 for the night to go with seven rebounds and three assists.

"Him and Rhys Smyth are the ones who haven’t won a championship with us so their hunger and drive, and the way they've gone about their business has been phenomenal," Ettridge said.

"Rhys is a phenomenal kid who is a Wanneroo boy, he is doing his job and going out and knocking down shots. Maxy is just playing anywhere from one to the four for us and it doesn’t matter who the match up is, he is giving us that flexibility to bring Trian off the bench which is phenomenal for us."

Ettridge wasn’t surprised when Maxwell initially decided during 2014 to give football a try and he participated in Foxtel's television program The Recruit and impressed with the oval ball.

While he didn’t earn an AFL contract, he decided to pursue the game by playing with Claremont last year but it didn’t quite pan out with injuries taking over following nine appearances in the reserves – including 19 possessions in one particularly impressive showing.

The pull of basketball and trying to win a championship with the Wolves proved too strong for Maxwell, though, and Ettridge is delighted to have him back but has no doubt he could succeed at whatever sport he tried.

"He is one of those kids who is just a freak athlete. Having taught him in Phys Ed class, if you throw a lacrosse stick at him he will score a goal. He is just one of those guys who loves life and being active, and he is a Phys Ed teacher himself now," he said.

"He got close and if injuries didn’t stop him he could be playing AFL somewhere, but he is just one of those kids you love to coach because of his attitude and way he goes about it. Everything he does is outstanding."

Saturday's Game 1 against the Tigers was a terrific and intense contest but it was inside where the Wolves got an advantage and ended up pulling in 23 more rebounds with Kevin Davis, Rob Huntington and Damian Matacz collecting 31 themselves while Willetton as a team had 29.

Ettridge has no doubt that proved pivotal in the final result but he wasn’t quite as happy with the missing of 13 free-throws throughout the game.

"Our three big guys outrebounded their entire team by two so when those three guys are doing that we are hard to beat. We have had to cover the loss of a couple of people, but all that's meant is a few extra minutes for Kev, Robbie and Damian Matacz," he said.

"We are over the moon with what they are giving us and coming right at the business end of the season they are showing why we can do what we do. Any coach wants to win the battle of the boards and wants to hit the free-throws.

"We didn’t hit our free-throws but didn’t turn the ball over a lot, and then in finals time it's about limiting the amount of extra possessions teams get.

"In the first half they had four or five O-boards and scored off all of them, so the guys know what they need to do and they attacked that with a hunger that wasn’t there in the first half."

While the Wolfpack certainly enjoy playing at home and have won 28 straight matches there, Ettridge is hoping they have played their last game at Joondalup for 2016.

If they win at Willetton on Friday that will be the case and that's the aim, but he is under no illusion as to the challenge that presents.

"We've set ourselves a few goals and if we have to come back home, we'd love to play in front of our home crowd. But if we can get it done in two that sets us up for a good week of preparation. I would still like to back our depth if it goes to a third game if it comes to that," Ettridge said.

"I'm happy with the win, however, there are parts of our execution that can get better and there were a couple of times we threw the ball out of bounds.

"When teams are spending a whole week preparing for you, we have to go and make some adjustments and do some things differently, but that’s what we have done all season.

"We have kept throwing things in that we've seen work and that's a testament to the guys for adapting to that all the way through."

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by Serene-Elise Photography