NSWIS stars kick off Rio wheelchair rugby campaign, go down in basketball

On a day when Ryley Batt, Cameron Carr and Andrew Edmondson began Australia’s defence of the Paralympic wheelchair rugby title, fellow NSWIS star Brett Stibners was sent packing as the Australian Rollers went down in their wheelchair basketball quarterfinal.

The wheelchair rugby team got its Rio 2016 Paralympic campaign off to a winning start, with a pulsating 53-51 victory over Great Britain.

Australia held the upper-hand for most of the match, but Great Britain pushed the Steelers at every opportunity and came back time and again from being as many as six goals down.

NSWIS’s four-time Paralympian Ryley Batt was a major contributor early as Australia went to the opening break with a 14-11 advantage.

The Aussies held a two goal lead over Great Britain at half-time, putting pressure on for a strong second half.

Solid defence from Australian captain Ryan Scott and five-time Paralympian Nazim Erdem kept the Brits at bay in the third quarter, allowing Batt to show off his scoring prowess and push the lead out to 40-36 heading into the final quarter.

Great Britain gave chase and got to within a goal with a minute left.

But Batt crossed two more times to secure the narrow win, finishing with a personal haul of 27 goals.

“It’s the Paralympic Games, not a training session – we knew it was going to be hard work,” Batt told the Australian Paralympic Committee.

“Props to GB for throwing all that they could at us, we knew it was coming. It wasn’t the best game we could have played but we would rather have that now. We needed a tough game like that, that will make us harder for the tournament to come.”

The Steelers headed into Rio ranked second in the world behind the USA. Their next face opponent is host Brazil on Thursday at 7:15pm local time (815am Friday AEST).

In the basketball, the Rollers, despite Stibners contributing his tournament high nine points, went down to Great Britain 74-51.

It was a crushing loss and the one that got away for the Australians who led 15-11 at quarter time and 31-29 at the main break before the rot set in and they were over powered by the disciplined Brits.

Great Britain outscored Australia 23-14 in the third stanza to lead the Rollers by seven, 52-45, heading into the final quarter. The fourth quarter was more of the same with Britain hammering home a 22-6 period for the comprehensive 23-point victory.

Australia will play a classification game on Saturday.