THE Nags Head Tavern & Bistro Rockingham Flames have now won four of their last five men's SBL matches and coach Mark Utley is confident that as long as his team makes the playoffs in 2015, then anything can happen and they can make a real impact.

The Flames learned the hard way in 2014 that being the higher seed in a playoff series counts for little once you are actually there having lost in three games to the eventual champion East Perth Eagles despite having finished the regular season in second position and the Eagles in seventh.

That's why Rockingham is just focused firstly on guaranteeing a playoff spot in 2015, then ensuring they are in good form for the post-season and ready to make an impact no matter what position they are coming from.

The Flames currently sit in sixth position with a 10-7 record having now won four of their last five matches and coach Utley is proud of the way his team has been able to perform so far in 2015.

"Our goal really is to make the playoffs. Last year we finished second and got beaten by seventh, and we were the only team to take a game off East Perth in the finals. And this year I still haven’t had a training session where I've had a full team," Utley said on SBL Slam on 98five Sonshine FM.

"Corey Craig went down Friday with an injury again and he's been out, Andrew Bowman was out for a while and we are sitting 10-7 without having key components in throughout each game. I think hopefully it's one of those years where things can gel in the playoffs."

One player who Utley sees as being a big part of the Flames' strong recent form is combo guard Ryan Godfrey.

Utley admits to not playing him to his strengths early in the season both offensively and defensively, but now that he has changed up his roles the results have been obvious and over the last nine games he's averaging 21.9 points a game having gone for 15.1 in the opening eight matches.

"He (Ryan) probably started a little bit slower than what we knew he was capable of and that was probably a little bit my fault more than anything," he said.

"I think I've found Ryan's role now and that is as that real scoring guard for us, and defensively I was playing him on catch and shoot shooters where his real strength is as one of the best defenders of small, quick dribbling guards.

"We look at who the main ball carrier is each week and the first one I write up is that Ryan goes to that player. I think that gets him motivated at the offensive end as well and over the last four weeks he's been outstanding for us."

Looking back on last weekend, the Flames beat the South West Slammers 99-93 on Friday night and then on Saturday, beat the Perry Lakes Hawks 106-97 and Utley was delighted with what he saw in both performances.

"I was really happy with that win over the Slammers. They didn’t have Tre Nichols but I thought we controlled most of the game so I was very happy with that win," Utley said.

"They (Hawks) were playing really well and I thought the Hawks were outstanding with the way they shot the ball and took it to us. But we just needed to sort of hang firm and what people probably don’t notice from the stats is that big Tom Remmerswaal was sick this weekend with a virus and he's a huge part for us.

"He's that extra big and Cooper Land got into early foul trouble, and there was one time when we had five guys who could play the point on the court at one time.

"If it wasn’t for the likes of Jarryd Griffin, who is an underrated rebounder and defender of bigs, we could have been in big trouble in that game. We set ourselves to get two wins for the weekend and we did the maths and thought that two wins on the weekend will go close to securing a playoff spot for us."

The Flames now are preparing to take on the league-leading Joondalup City Wolves this Saturday night at Joondalup Basketball Stadium.

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by Mick Cronin