How Forestville formed a superteam

Feature image via: Mark Willoughby

Championship captain Adam Doyle believes despite the immense talent the Forestville Eagles have recruited, the team will be flying coming into March 29th. 

The Eagles are coming off a championship-winning season, led by Finals MVP Greg Mays. In the off-season, the team has added reigning Woollacott medallist Alex Starling and NBL superstar Dejan Vasiljevic to the roster – creating arguably the greatest men’s starting five the NBL1 has ever seen. 

Related: "I wanted to stay," why the Central MVP had to change teams

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On the latest episode of the NBL1 Central Unleashed Podcast, Doyle explained how the culture created by head coach Andy Simons has allowed the team to recruit such high-level talent. 

“One thing that Forestville does well and what Simo has done well, he’s created a great culture, a winning culture,” Doyle said. 

“We got guys that want to win, we aren’t here to get our 20 points and go home, we are getting on, we want to win and we know the way we want to go about it. And that attracts a lot of guys, obviously with Alex (Starling), he wanted to come across..with losing (Brad) Rathjen and Uche (Dibiamaka), we have to replace them with someone (Dejan Vasiljevic).”

Doyle explained that losing Rathjen’s defence and Dibiamaka scoring (15.7 per game) will hurt significantly considering how impactful both were during the finals. In response, the club recruited the reigning Best Defensive Player in Starling and an elite NBL scorer in Vasiljevic, who should more than make up for the gaps the Eagles were facing a few months ago. 

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After another successful season with the Adelaide 36ers, Vasiljevic told Doyle he wanted to remain in South Australia for the off-season. Leading to the captain to recruit the two-time NBL champion and connect him with coach Simons. 

“It didn’t just happen overnight, but the one thing that is great about Andy is that he works hard. He will try and get the players he wants and he works hard for that,” Doyle said.

“We just have a good culture, and guys just want to play for our culture.” 

With four players on the team that have been the focal point of an NBL1 or NBL offence at one point of their career, Doyle explained how the team plans to navigate the inevitable teething pains the group will have early in the season. 

“There’s always going to be that, we are getting used to playing with each other. Some guys are fitting in and that sort of stuff,” he said. 

“We’ve had a couple of trial games with everyone, Vasiljevic has been training with us for the past couple of weeks. We are getting there, we are learning each other. From my point of view of learning is, ‘okay I’ve got another four weapons out there, what play am I running for who’.

“Everyone wants to win in our team, everyone’s there ready to win and wanting to play hard. I think there’s definitely going to be those issues of just working together as we are getting used to each other, but there’s going to be no issue (long-term), we are going to be flying from the get-go.” 

With multiple other teams in the conference making significant signings as well, this coming NBL1 Central season should be a blockbuster event each weekend. 

The NBL1 Central season starts March 29th.