Perth Heat are back on the road for a pre-Christmas ABL series with the Brisbane Bandits and looking to hit back after two tough weekends and take advantage of the small confines of Viticon Stadium.
The Heat will head to Brisbane to face the Bandits in Round 6 of the ABL season with the opening game on Thursday night before another Friday, and then a double to wrap things up on Saturday.
Coming into the series and the two teams are holding up the foot of the ABL standings as well with the Heat currently second last with an 8-12 record and the Bandits in bottom place at 6-13.
That only increases the importance of the contest this week at Viticon Stadium with a loss in the series to make it a challenge over the final month for that team to keep themselves in the top four race.
The two teams started the ABL season playing against one another at Empire Ballpark and on that occasion the Heat won the first two games with a combined 10-2 scoreline before the Bandits hit back to win the next two contests 14-0.
Since then, the Heat split their next home series with the Sydney Blue Sox before beating the Adelaide Giants three games to one on the road ahead of being swept away to the Melbourne Aces, and then losing three of four last weekend at home to the Canberra Cavalry.
Meanwhile, after that first series in Perth to open the season, Brisbane went 1-2 at home to the Aces before being swept on the road to the Cavalry, taking one win in four games at home to the Giants, and then last week splitting the four games with the Blue Sox in Sydney.
Heat manager Andy Kyle has done his best to freshen up his group this week ahead of the trip to Brisbane for Thursday night’s Game 1 of the series as they prepare to handle the unique dimensions of a smaller ballpark.
“We have had a light week on the track to try and freshen up and clean some things up, and had a couple of meetings to go over our approaches and how we want to attack Brisbane,” Kyle said.
“We’ve made sure we go over with a clear game plan and have done our best to rest up to try and get over there to compete the best we can. The big thing in Brisbane is that it’s a really small park so we need to limit their big innings.
“A solo home run might not hurt you too much there, but if you walk guys or we make errors to give them extra base runs and then they hit a ball out, then that’s where the damage can be done. That’s going to be the big thing this weekend.”
The Heat will once again be without pitching pair Jordan Power and Will Sherriff, but Byron Armstrong comes back into the batting line-up with Japanese star Fumiya Kurokawa’s five-week stint in the ABL having drawn to a close.
“We’ve been a bit unlucky with some injuries over the last couple of weeks as well and we’re missing Power for personal reasons, and he’s away at the moment,” Kyle said.
“Will Sherriff is down with an elbow injury so we were down two arms last weekend and they’ll be again this weekend. It’s something we’re working on and hopefully the guys filling in can do a good job.”
ABL SEASON 2024/25 – ROUND 6 (December 19-21)
PERTH HEAT v BRISBANE BANDITS – at VITICON STADIUM
GAME 1 – Thursday 4.30pm WST
GAME 2 – Friday 4.30pm WST
GAME 3 – Saturday 12.30pm WST
GAME 4 – Saturday 4.30pm WST