SOME SBL men's and women's coaches shared their thoughts on how their respective ninth round weekends of the 2014 season went.

WOMEN'S
KALAMUNDA EASTERN SUNS
Coach – Craig Mansfield

With the amount of injuries we've had this year, it was nice to escape a game without another injury and now we are glad to have the bye this weekend. We were happy with the win and I was actually reasonably impressed with East Perth. They rebounded the ball very well and in a lot of ways, they were better than us defensively. We tried to put pressure on and they controlled the ball. We were good offensively. We made 11 threes and got 40 free-throws, but I was happy with the quality of the shots.

ORANGE AUTOS ROCKINGHAM FLAMES
Coach – Ryan Petrik

Clearly understanding Wolves without Martin are a different team, and then Willo having to back up for a double header from Saturday night to Sunday lunchtime; those two things helped us out. But without Fletcher, giving the squad a full week off practice with the bye, and having two quality opponents in the one weekend; always happy to get out of there with two wins.

MEN'S
VORIAN AGENCY EAST PERTH EAGLES
Coach – Adam Forde

This was the first week we had the entire squad at training. Jamie Barnett seems to have fully recovered from his injury, while Drew Williamson is back (for the most part), plus it great having Tommy Jervis back in the rotation for us, especially going up against Luke Nevill on Sunday. In addition Mathiang Muo may be suiting up for his first game sooner than expected after the great month he has had on the training floor.

We needed this double to stay in touch with getting back into the top-eight. And with everyone slowly coming back into the team we have still been able to get great production from Donlagic, Kisselev and Dech who have all improved dramatically on their numbers compared to last season having to carry additional workload.

MANDURAH MAGIC
Coach – Jason Chalk

Once again we became undisciplined on the offensive end and gave up a nice half-time lead as we did the week before. We tried to force the ball and were unable to contain Gavin Field who was sensational down the stretch for the Cougars. Our big guys once again filled it up for us but we need to get Ben Smith more shots as he scored 30-plus points on only 14 field goal attempts.

PERRY LAKES HAWKS
Coach – Charles Nix

The trip up to Geraldton has to be the toughest road game in the league currently. They are a quality team with a passionate fan base, the atmosphere in the stadium is just electric. The guys did a great job in the first half at executing our game plan which put us in a good position at half-time.

Once we started to step away from what we know works we let them get a lead and you can't afford to let the Buccs get in front up there because it's hard to peg it back. Bennie Lewis was hitting everything and they were rolling. To my guys' credit we played it out to the end and we definitely gained some confidence out of the game.

ORANGE AUTOS ROCKINGHAM FLAMES
Coach – Mark Utley

Great to get back on the winner's page after two hard fought wins. A good all-round effort, Tommy and Bowie were great for us and it was great to see Ryan Godfrey back in a Flames singlet.