And after being written off all season, the Dragons are out to prove a point.

“We feel like no-one will give us too many opportunities to be able to win,” Dragons coach Shane Heal said this week.

“We’ve got a lot of guys that haven’t been picked up from other teams in their careers and we feel like this is an opportunity for everyone to go out and prove what they can do within their role in the team.”

Having lost two of three games against the Taipans this season, South are the undisputed underdogs heading into tonight’s clash.

But that suits the Dragons just fine.

“There’s not a lot to lose for us, Cairns have had a fantastic season and they’ve only lost a couple of games at home so not many people will give us a chance and we like that,” Heal said.

While no-one really expected the Dragons to make the playoffs in their debut season – a feat not achieved since the Geelong Supercats side of 1982 - the team is not about to rest on its laurels.

“To make the playoffs in our first year is something that’s pretty special and no-one really expected it from outside the club, but no-one’s really happy with that either,” Heal said.

“We really want to go into the finals and call ourselves the giant killers and beat the teams that have been around for a long time.

“We’re certainly not satisfied just to make the playoffs, we want to push this run as far as we can.”

And, if all goes according to plan, that run will see the South Dragons battle cross-town rivals the Melbourne Tigers in the third round of the Philips Championship series.

“We do look that far ahead, that’s like a carrot for us, a little reward at the end of the day if we’re good enough to be able to get over Cairns and then if we’re good enough to be able to go and beat a good team like Perth,” Heal said.

“It would be a massive bonus for us because we’d love nothing more than to be able to have the Tigers rivalry brew even more in front of a sold-out house at Vodafone Arena. It’s all a possibility, it’s going to be a tough ask for us to be able to beat Cairns and Perth but let’s have a crack at it and see what happens.”
While the Dragons have battled to win series honours all season, the team is confident of its one-off potential.

“We know that most teams would rather not play us in a one-off game,” Heal said.

“One-off we feel like we can get in there and do anything and we do have a lot of confidence to do that and we know that Cairns probably won’t feel that comfortable in playing us and we know that Perth won’t either.”

Also on the Dragons’ side is their full week of recovery following the end of the regular season.

“Everyone’s feeling really good, it’s probably an advantage for us to have finished our season last Wednesday because I think like every other team, everyone was a bit flat,” Heal said.

“It’s probably been an NBL season like no other in terms of how many games we’ve played per month, I think we played nine or 10 or something in December and everyone mentally and physically hit the wall, so it’s a good opportunity for us to be able to freshen up and have a good preparation for the game.”

Cairns Taipans v South Dragons
Thursday February 15 @ Cairns Convention Centre
Tip-off 7:40pm AEDT