Coming off the back of two COVID-19 riddled seasons which allowed little room for the team to flourish, there is strong hopes that this year will spell a return to normality for the club and the Waratah League in general.

Their first match-up came against the St George Saints Red, the top seeded team from last year and one of the strongest clubs in the comp.

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This was a great test for the Tigers side as they immediately had to be on their A-Game if they wished to secure the win.

Tigers Head Coach Ben Bagoly was stoked with his sides performance and is looking forward to the challenge of what he sees as a more competitive league overall.

"In my opinion the league has honestly gotten a lot better, with the first year of the NBL1 this year and a lot of those players who didn't make those squads are now playing in our comp."

"I think it's really good for the strength and talent of the league," he said.

The Tigers built their lead off of a strong defensive gameplan that really helped to disrupt the oppositions flow on offense.

"Holding a team to 75 is always going to lead to wins in any league, if you can keep a team to under 20 a quarter, you know you're doing something right," he said.

While Coach Bagoly feels they weren't close to their offensive ceiling as a team, the team did more than enough to create separation.

The team overall showcased fantastic ball movement and shared the load around with a massive six players in double figures led by William Ozolins' 15 points.

The unselfishness of his squad must be a positive sign for Coach Bagoly in the early stages, but even he thinks the team needs to figure out who exactly their go-to scorers are.

"At times I felt the guys who might be the better scorers were not as aggressive as I'd like them to be, but that's up to us to recognise that and run stuff to get those guys going in the future."

The team experimented with both a fast paced offensive strategy and half court slowed down pace, feeling that being versatile on both sides will make them harder to game-plan for.

A standout performance for Coach Bagoly was backup combo guard Aaron Puljic who had a fantastic game off the bench and really was the sparkplug of the match.

Puljic poured in 13 points, going 8/8 from the free throw line and even knocking down some triples, which was especially important on a day where there weren't a lot of them being made for either side.

Looking to the next match, Coach Bagoly stated a need to be more "organsied offensively" and an ability to "play our game" and the build on the squads already strong defense.

"We just want to continue to build on our defensive philosophy we talked about in the preseason."

"There were moments where we did it but there were also a number of moments where there were mental lapses, whether that was fatigue or whatever, we need to work it out."

"We are going to keep building those healthy habits. Train hard, listen and hopefully it'll translate to the games."

The Shoalhaven Tigers next game is against the St George Saints White at Hurstville on April 2.