Save Our South Dragons

I have noticed recently that their has been alot of talk that the Dragons are moving to the Cage all their home games. IS this true?? I find this extremely upsetting as we have finally set Hisense up us our home ground and it would make sense to stay in the larger stadium for atleast one more year at Hisense with the revamp, than rather downsizing big time and possibly locking alot of people out.

EXPECT the "new-NBL" to strongly resemble the old competition with nine of the existing clubs back to forge basketball's new era.

The Adelaide 36ers, Perth Wildcats, Melbourne Tigers, South Dragons, Wollongong Hawks, New Zealand Breakers, Gold Coast Blaze, Townsville Crocodiles and Cairns Taipans will be the ground-breaking "new" franchises leaving major centres Sydney and Brisbane without initial representation.

The Sydney Spirit from the NBL's "farewell" 2008-09 season, are officially dead and gone but the rest of the competition - including the troubled Cairns and Wollongong franchises - will be back.

Nine teams most likely will mean a 32-game regular season with each team playing every opponent four times.

Basketball Australia's announcements of the future of its elite competitions has been further delayed due to a couple of Melbourne-based issues, one of which affects Adelaide.

That is whether the Melbourne Tigers' majority shareholder Seamus McPeake will go forward with his plans to purchase the Distinctive Homes Dome - and with it, the 36ers club - from Eddy Groves and Mal Hemmerling.

Currently McPeake and BA are at odds over plans for the Tigers' home court "The Cage" - the State Netball Hockey Centre - to be shared by Melbourne's arch enemy and crosstown rival South.

"Blockbuster" fixtures would be at the Dragons' former home at Hisense Arena.

No-one from BA would go on the record yesterday in the wake of the weekend's Sydney summit which brought together the game's stakeholders for the first time.

"It was a very positive meeting," Basketball SA chief executive officer Mark Hubbard said.

"The NBL clubs, the state basketball associations and people such as (new Opals coach) Carrie Graf attended, with, of course, (new BA CEO) Larry Sengstock.

"The No. 1 goal of the game is to increase participation in our sport and for all the stakeholders in the game in this country to be working together."

That means a greater interaction between players from the elite levels - in South Australia specifically 36ers and Lightning players - with the game's grassroots.

"It has been identified that a significant thing for the new body is linking the grassroots through to elite-level," Hubbard said. "That link also needs to be two-way."

I was worried this was going to happen. It really dissapoints  me the timing of us changing venue. Firstly it is hypocritical as from day one we have bagged the tigers and the cage and now we might move there.

I also agree with you hayden that it is really bad timing. The league should be expanding not downsizing! All of a sudden our plan has a chance to work, then we say that we are moving to a smaller venue. we are hoping that more people will attend our games and we averaged 1,000 more than the capacity of the cage. That is already alot of people that we are going to be turning away.

The Dragons have always prided themselves on being professional and giving us a big game feel. Moving to the cage, or the liar(whatever we will call it) will be a huge mistake and i understand the financial reasons, but it would have been nice if we could have sticked it out for one more season, atleast give the new league a chance.

p.s the cage is a shithole!!

Well that would be an interesting move. I live in the East - Glen Iris - Have been a member with the family - 4 of us in total fo the past 2 years. We have 2 kids - ages 4 and 2 and thus like to park close to Hisense and walk with the pram. Not sure a move to the Cage would suit us as the extra travel time ans lack of parking would be an issue. Wonder how many Members would not renew and rather only attend a few games if this is true ? I would have to consider it

Brett Rainbow at 09:07AM on Apr 21, 2009

Well that would be an interesting move. I live in the East - Glen Iris - Have been a member with the family - 4 of us in total fo the past 2 years. We have 2 kids - ages 4 and 2 and thus like to park close to Hisense and walk with the pram. Not sure a move to the Cage would suit us as the extra travel time ans lack of parking would be an issue. Wonder how many Members would not renew and rather only attend a few games if this is true ? I would have to consider it

I think that there will be alot of people in the same boat as you. I hope that for the good of basketball that if we have to move that we can all stick behind the club and almost pack it out each night. It is going to be a tough ask for cowan to try and sell to Dragons fans as we all hate this stadium and even they bag it.

I have a couple of questions though.

Will our memberships and ticketprices rise?? I hope not or at least nothing like what the tigers charge.

What are blockbuster matches?? how many games will we play at the cage???. I would be happy to play a few games at the snahc like 5 or something but i wonder what they mean by Blockbuster. Does that mean just the Derby???

Will we name it something?? Obviously not the cage.

The giants did the same thing with Dandenong stadium and played at the glass house for bigger games,although they shared with Rangers,its a good idea to have 5 or so games at MSAC not the cage,i wont go to many cage games its just a killer to get to and parking,also a dump!

 How hard will that be for me. Our family has 2 tigers supporters and one south dragon (me) I am the most passionate therefore we go mostly to South Games, and really only attend melb games if south are playing them.  For us, being in South gippsland we have a 2 hour drive up to see the game, being at hisense means its very direct, straight up the M1 off at swan street and you're there.  For the cage we have to battle across town after a 2 hour drive .. that will SUCK big time !

And frankly I think the cage Sux compared to Hisense, its out away from everything. Hisense in amongst all the action.  I think as current Champions we need to keep a High Grade profile and that just won't happen at the cage. Sigh !

I totally understand Angie. I also, as i have previously said would be very dissapointed if the Dragons have moved some or almost all of their games to the cage. However it is the only viable option other than Hisense and msac certainly isnt big enough. Of course it is a pain to get to yet, in a way i understand why they did it. I would prefer having to only play maybe 5 to 6 game there a year, but overal if it means that our team can finally start being financially stable and therefore we have our Dragons around for a long time then i'm all for it.

It definetely would be better to keep the high profile and look professional and stay at Hisense full time but it would be better to have a team. For those who say they wont go as much as they hate the stadium and it is a pain, as i have said in the past, we should defintely go and throw our support behind the Dragons and cowan.

I guess that pur average crowds will probably drop to around 2,800 to 3,200 as many will not go as much but if we can start making a profit it would be huge!!!!

However the Tigers are trying to block us, so it might not yet happen. the most interesting part will be how many games we play there?

I agree Reloaded, but the reality is that it is just a shame that we have to sort of retreat, rather than doing our best to expand our crowds, following and the league!! Alot of people will refuse to go to games next year if they are at the cage as we hate the stadium and so do the South Dragons.

I wish msac could be expanded to seat another 1,500 to 2,000 people as i would much prefer to play their!!

Have games at Dandenong and all the 5000 to 10.000 seat games at Hisense...

or Msac and cut the losses,wed rather be there than the cage,cage is a hole.

Well out of those two options South, i think that dandenong would be the best for the occasional match. I think the stadium holds like 2,500?? so it might do, nbut i believe the Dragons have their heart set on the Cage. I also think they came to the conclusion the msac was just to small and i surpose the cage is the next biggest. I just wonder how many games will be played at Hisense, hopefully the majority.

south01 at 01:25AM on Apr 28, 2009

Have games at Dandenong and all the 5000 to 10.000 seat games at Hisense...

or Msac and cut the losses,wed rather be there than the cage,cage is a hole.

On Dandenong that could be viable, maybe playing 5 or 6 games there a year, and the rest at Hisense. I also guess the Stadium would be quite cheap to rent.

With regards to msac are you saying that we play all our games at msac?? If so absolutely no way. we would have to cut our current base by 65%. Msac is really just too small. Another 3,000 or 2,000 seats would be great!

Sorry to say it but i will NOT go to a game at the Cage.

It seems like a (hard)of a place to get to by public transport which i take to games and i honestly wouldn't be surprised to see crowds regularly drop below 2000 at that craphole.:mad:

Even worse is because i dont have foxtel i wont have a clue whos playing well how we are going etc.

Yes cage is a bad place to get to,ill only go to Saturday night games,we probably wont end up moving there anyway.

South dragons- the peoples club!

"Sorry to say it but i will NOT go to a game at the Cage.

It seems like a (hard)of a place to get to by public transport which i take to games and i honestly wouldn't be surprised to see crowds regularly drop below 2000 at that craphole.

Even worse is because i dont have foxtel i wont have a clue whos playing well how we are going etc."

is that really necessary?

I dont really care too much about the languauge on this site, as we are adults however, please dont use that word.:)

Guys vote on our poll on the right handside of the site.

yeah i voted on no games

I think everyone has. I do not know of any Dragons supporters whop actually want to move games there, but i think most will come around if it means financial security.