‘Heat no longer in title race’ admits Surrey Coach Raftopoulos

With six defeats in their last seven games and off the back of an 18-point mauling to the Worcester Wolves, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect the Surrey Heat camp to be hurting today.

Their drop in form has coincided with the departure of established forward, Martelle McLemore, who was released after failing to rediscover his early season production having overcome an injury.

The Heat are now running a seven-man rotation, something that Coach Raftopoulos feels has played a major role in his team failing to maintain their challenge for the top spot.

“I think we’re out of the title race,” admitted Heat Coach, Creon Raftopoulos, after watching his team lose their fourth straight game on Friday night, “We’ve got to hope that teams drop games.”

“Leicester (who currently sit top of the league, four positions and 10 points clear of Surrey with a game in hand) are a really tough team and are really deep. I don’t see them dropping too many games. I would say it’s out of our hands.”

“We know we’re a man down right now. We’re one import player down and it shows when we get in those close games as well as on the scoring statistics. A key contributor off the bench is Julius Joseph who has been forced to play more minutes that his body doesn’t want to play and I don’t want him to play.”

The Heat have been trying to land a replacement for McLemore since he left the club earlier this month. Early hopes were that Travis Holmes may rejoin having previously played for the team during McLemore’s time on the sidelines but those talks broke down over finances, leaving the Heat still searching.