Imports impress as Spirit build towards new WNBL season

The WNBL season is just one month away and the Spirit are hard at work in pre-season training as they build a campaign that they hope will improve on last season's fifth place.

The Spirit's best form last year was as good as any team in the competition, but when they were bad they were bad and it eventually cost them a play-off berth.

The Spirit have lost Opals squad member Anneli Maley, but Kereama said the addition of imports Ruth Davis and Mehryn Kraker gave the club more depth and flexibility.

"From a fit perspective they fit in really well,'' Kereama said of Davis and Kraker.

"Culturally, they both bring a tremendous amount of experience and they're both very talented basketball players.

"To bring in a six foot six Ruth Davis, who will hold and create space and has played in Europe and averaged a double-double her entire career, is really important for us.

"With Ruth and Mehryn, their good days and bad days look the same.

"We understand that our great days last season looked exceptional, but our bad days were disastrous.

"We want our ceiling to be higher than what it was last year, but we also want our baseline to be higher than what it was last year.

"With the pieces we've added we're going to be an exceptionally long team and we have three of the best passes in the country.

"Kelly Wilson led NBL1 South in assists, Mehryn Kraker led the NBL1 West in assists and Alex Wilson led the NBL1 Central in assists. If you're a shooter on our team it's like Christmas."

The Spirit's pre-season started with a trip to Korea.

The understrength Spirit squad Won three of their five games in a level of basketball that Kerama described as "phenomenal"

"We got everything we wanted out of it,'' Kereama said.

"It was a platform to bring in the new players and build a foundation where we could proceed through things at the start of pre-season a little quicker than we would have.

"It helped build chemistry among team-mates, which is important.

"There are significant improvements we wanted to make on last year, so it was important that our starting platform was more solid this year compared to last year.

"We didn't want to be learning everything from day one again."

Kereama said he was better prepared for his second season in charge of the Spirit.

"I've had nothing but time to prepare,'' he said.

"I don't coach NBL1 anymore, so that gave me plenty of time to reflect and plan.

"Going into year two we can add so much more dimension with better knowledge of our personnel and intentionally recruit people that will suit our culture and our style of play.

"In year one, it feels as though the first six or seven weeks go by in the blink of an eye and you feel as though you haven't implemented a lot of systems of play and built a rapport with players.

"In year two, you're a little more relaxed and there's more of a sense of familiarity."

The Spirit's first game is at home against Townsville on November 4.

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