Can Melbourne stay United through adversity?

Three big names will be on the sidelines for Melbourne in the Throwdown on Sunday, but Chris Goulding is confident United can cover for their missing stars.

Luke Travers (concussion), Ian Clark (hamstring) and Matthew Dellavedova are all out for the ladder-leaders, while the South East Melbourne Phoenix are missing Gorjok Gak, but welcome back Will Cummings and new signing Daniel Johnson, as an injury replacement. 

The United powerhouse has preached ‘opportunity’ at a time of need, and is adamant that they will remain on top.

“Opportunity is a word we keep talking about, that I keep talking about,” Goulding told the media on Friday.

“Opportunity presents itself to some guys that maybe haven’t had as many minutes as they have had before, or a role that they’ve had before, and I’m really confident that the guys will step up and take that opportunity.”

Forward Kyle Bowen was a spark off the bench against the Wildcats last week with an impressive 16 rebounds, a league first this season – a prime example of Goulding and head coach Dean Vickerman’s assuring comments.

“There’s not too many teams in the league that could lose three players during a game and still go very close to scratching out a win,” Vickerman said.

“We’ve been really good so far in playing great basketball with whoever is available, and that will continue.”

Melbourne has only had its full team healthy for 47 seconds this season, forcing Vickerman to change the club's training routine. 

“You ask yourself as a coaching staff, were we were prepared for all those things to happen, and you’d probably come out and say, there’s some things that we could’ve tidied up and prepare people if those kind of injuries happen,” he explained.

“So we started to do that during our practice.”

Throwdown XXII will tip-off on Sunday at 2:00pm AEDT. You can watch the game live and free on ESPN via Kayo Freebies, 10 Peach and 10 Play.