Lavery and Brown on Jets win over Tigers

John Lavery had reason to smile as he saw his Cheshire Jets side take the head-to-head win over Mersey Tigers and boost their chances of finishing the league campaign with a Championship play-off spot.

“There was a lot of confusion but you’ve just got to put that to one side. What’s pleasing for me is that a few weeks ago a close game like that we would have probably come out with a loss.

“We stayed hard and focused and came out with a W. That’s the most pleasing thing for me, in a tight game we did all the right things, Colin O’Reilly made it a little tense at the end missing two free throws but Matt came up with a big board, we went to the line and made the free throws so I’m pretty pleased with that.”

Bill Cole was a huge loss midway through the game, and was probably one of the main reasons why the Jets were kept close to Mersey for the majority of the game, but he was full of praise for his team and for one player in particular who stepped into the breach: “It was tough but Nathan [Schall] came in and did a fantastic job. Everything I asked of him, he did, and I can’t thank him any more.

“You’ve got to be aggressive in a derby and we knew before the game it wasn’t going to be pretty which it wasn’t. It was really scrappy and we had to come out with some heart and desire and play some defence.

“I thought our defence was a little bit lacklustre in the first half but in the second we made a couple of adjustments going into the third and fourth quarter which helped us really well and I think the guys overall played pretty hard.

“It gives us the head-to-head but more importantly it takes us up the table. I think we’ve got eight games left, we’ve got teams that are around us, Guildford have got to come here, we have to go to Milton Keynes, all head-to-head games.

“Sharks have got to come here as well, Worcester aren’t going to like coming here next week so we’re pretty confident we can put a good run together and hopefully this will kick-start that run.”

Speaking to point guard Adam Brown after the game, he gave his outlook on the victory: “It was a tough start, the ball didn’t run for me all the time, shots that would only go halfway down and come back out. I kept playing my point guard role, distributing the ball, but 17 points and 10 assists, it was a great double-double for me. We got the win, it was ugly, but we’ll take it.

“Our chances have increased with the head-to-head with Mersey. I think the team is very well tuned right now, we haven’t peaked yet this season, but if we can go on a streak and put some wins together, we can get to the play-offs”

With Bill Cole sidelined for almost half of the game, what effect did it have for Adam and the team as a whole: “For me, when Bill went out, he’s one of my weapons as a point guard. With him gone I had to turn my scoring part of my game, put up a few more shots, but as a team I think everyone knew they had to step up. Unfortunately he went down, but at the same time it was a little boost for us.”