THE value of having an imported player on the roster was evident on Saturday night as the Wagga Heat came to Dubbo and scored a comprehensive 103-58 win over the Rams at the Wool Shed.
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Led by 40 points from American Gage Daye, the Heat were clinical as they shot well and capitalised on the chances given to them by the Dubbo side.
With captain Dan Medway missing due to cricket commitments the Rams lacked composure at times, and that combined with the red-hot shooting of the southerners saw them establish a 57-20 lead at half-time.
But the hosts showed heart in the second half, keeping the Heat to just 16 points in the third term before both sides opened up in the last quarter, which was won by the visitors 30-25.
"It's a good way to start our season, particularly when you consider our first three games are all on the road," Wagga coach Allan Mullins said.
"We've been in training since January and had a couple of trials leading in to this so our preparation has been good but it's nice to come out and play well under match conditions.
"Obviously Gage was the star of the show but we had contributions from everyone, we run 12 players deep and everyone did their job."
While obviously disappointed to lose the match so convincingly, Dubbo coach Jay Forrester was still able to take positives out of the match.
One of them was the performance of young centre Luke Anderson, who led the scoring for the Rams with 17 points.
"I thought we were good given it was our first game and we have about five new players in our squad," Forrester said.
"Obviously the first half wasn't good but they hardly missed a shot and we just didn't settle into the game.
"But the good thing was we played with intensity the whole game and even though we were out of it we didn't lie down.
"Other teams will take notice of that and hopefully we can improve a bit when we go to Canberra next weekend."
o WAGGA HEAT 103 (Gage Daye 40, Dom Tye 19, Ben Anglis 11, Scott Hare 9, Sam McPaul 8, Joe Howard 4, Zac Maloney 4, Josh McPherson 3, Peter Barber 3, Joel Stankiewicz 2) def DUBBO RAMS 58 (Luke Anderson 17, Chris Spinner 9, Aaron Hutchins 8, Damien Reid 6, Mark Willis 6, Daniel Read 4, Bart Sykes 4, Daniel Pracy 2, Brian Amos 2)
