Phoenix and Hawks swap secrets on playoff eve

Michael Randall, for the Herald Sun

South East Melbourne’s quest for a maiden NBL championship will have a little brown and gold tinge, with AFL team Hawthorn in their corner as the burgeoning relationship between the cross-code clubs grows.

The two teams based in Melbourne’s working class Heartland share some administration services and are happy to open their doors to each other.

At Phoenix games, several Hawks will usually be found around John Cain Arena, cheering the laser green on.

“There’s a good few boys, probably five or six, who were there on Wednesday night,” Irish Hawk Conor Nash said.

“The boys go most weeks, the relationship’s really good, we just sing out and there’s tickets available for us.

“We’re both in the south east so the relationship works well and long may it continue.”

Nash, whose Hawks launch headlong into the 2026 AFL season when they head north to take on Greater Western Sydney on Saturday, watched Wednesday night’s dismantling of Perth and said it came as no surprise the Phoenix were legitimate NBL title contenders, after what he found when the two clubs’ leadership groups recently met to share ideas.

“They invited us in and we saw everything, the full review of the game with coach (Josh King) and the leaders there, watched the practice session and then sat down with those leaders over lunch,” Nash said.

“(Nathan) Sobey, (Angus) Glover, (Owen) Foxwell and (Jordi) Hunter were there and we had a good chat, went through some of their scenarios and talked about how the communicated onthe court, how it needs to be rapid.

“It was elite, we loved it, and it’s no surprise that they’re still there at the pointy end of the season.

”While South East Melbourne’s attention has already shifted to next Tuesday’s semi-final opener against Adelaide 36ers, Glover said the relationship between the Phoenix and Hawks had gone from strength-to-strength.

“It was cool to have them at the club and talk a lot about their experiences, how their leadership functions and how it’s evolved,” Glover said.

“AFL and basketball are very different. For us, there’s only five on the floor and you’re in close proximity with each other all the time, while, on the footy field, it’s a massive, open space, so the relay of messages is very different.

“We found that the little roles within both our leadership groups tended to naturally evolve because you understand each other so well and it just forms as the pre-season and season ticks over.

”Former Boomer and Phoenix assistant Adam Gibson is a mad Hawks fan and Glover said he’d managed to rope in Trinidadian Next Star Malique Lewis – who “didn’t have much of a choice because he lives with Gibbo”.

“I really want to go and experience what their game days are like and there’s been some dialogue there,” Glover said.

“You just want to learn whatever you can out of that and continue to build that relationship between the two clubs.

”The long-running gag is Collingwood’s Scott Pendlebury has a “basketball background” owing to his high-level junior abilities before he chose to focus on footy.

You won’t get any of that from Nash, who arrived at the Hawks from the Emerald Isle at the end of 2016 as a category B rookie and has since appeared in 120 games for the club.

“To be honest, I’m not a basketballer, I don’t have a basketball background at all, certainly not in Ireland,” he laughed.

“I was amazed by their (Phoenix players’) intensity in training and the skill was off the charts.

”He said tough-as-teak defender Blake Hardwick fancied himself as the self-proclaimed best basketballer at the Hawks but the Wizard Nick Watson and big Mabior Chol also had claims – even if they’re yet to be tested at Hawthorn’s new $113 million Dingley home.

“We used to have the hoop up back at Waverley but it hasn’t been put up here – I think the boys might have been spending too much time on it,” Nash laughed.

He said the lads at Hawthorn loved NBA SuperCoach – the fantasy game “goes bananas here”.

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