I have to be honest – I was not looking overly forward to this game. I often find the evening games in Darwin to be messy, too slippery and a bit of a dog’s breakfast in terms of quality. The humidity plays havoc with the skills, and games turn into a real slog.
And then this game unfolded into an absolute ripper, with pressure, skill, and complete desperation on both sides. Maybe I was wrong.
The Suns got the jump, and it looked as though they were going to have an easy defence of their Darwin fortress, but to the Hawks’ credit, they fired back after quarter time, and clawed their way back into the game to eventually take the lead in the third quarter.
At this point, I wondered whether we were about to see the Suns of old? After all, this team has been criticised for being one of the “soulless expansion teams”, and really, there have been times when they’ve capitulated and proven the people who called them that to be correct.
But not this time.
Not this incarnation of the Suns.
This time, things are different.
They handled the pressure, and they turned it back on the Hawks, taking their best shots, and throwing plenty back at them.
It was Rowell, Anderson, Miller, and Collins – the old heads. And then it was Noble, Rioli, and a bloke named Ben Long, that lifted the Suns and carried the team to one of the best wins of the season.
Are the Suns for real?
What do the Hawks take from this loss?
Time to take a close look at what was probably the best game I’ve seen from TIO Stadium, as the Suns saw off the big challenge of the Hawks, and moved to 7-2 for the year.
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