Goes From Bad To Worse For Taipans

This is from today's Cairns Post.

LIFE after full professionalism has already started for the Cairns Taipans who last night held their first evening training session.

Full professionalism had previously allowed the NBL players to train twice during the day, completing on-court sessions in the morning and weights and individual shooting drills in the afternoon.

But after the club was placed in administration last week, several players were forced to reconsider their finances and seek outside employment.

Former coach Alan Black, whose contract was terminated yesterday by the club’s financial administrators, initiated the move but visited training only briefly last night, dropping in to farewell players barely an hour after learning he had been axed.

"I said this to the guys, it may be that we need to train at night and make it more like an ABA program that an NBL program," Black said last week when the players learned the club had been placed in voluntary administration. "If that’s the case, then that’s the case."

"We may end up training late at night or doing weights early in the morning to get it done, however, we can get it done."

Captain Martin Cattalini said the players had felt sorry for Black after learning of his axing.

"We were shocked but after the week we’ve had, you learn to expect anything," he said.

Despite the woes of the past week, Cattalini reiterated the need for community support at tomorrow night’s home game against the Melbourne Tigers.

"We want that Wednesday night game against the Tigers to be a sellout so they can see us and we can say thank you," Cattalini said last week after the players voted to take a 45 per cent pay cut to save the team.

The Taipans ended a seven-game losing streak when they beat the Blaze in an overtime thriller on the Gold Coast last Saturday night.

The Taipans leapfrogged Wollongong on the competition ladder with the win but face a tough test against the third-placed Tigers tomorrow.

- And to top off the week for the Taipans, young Dwayne Vale has been caught drink driving.

- Wollongong's favourite basketball son, Gordie McLeod talks about where basketball has gone wrong.

Kenyon Martin talks about his "lips" tattoo.