San Miguel ready and confident heading into Clark bubble

San Miguel is raring to go into battle.

As per head coach Leo Austria, the defending champion Beermen are in high spirits and are more than ready for the PBA restart on October 9 at the Clark Freeport Zone in Pampanga.

The 8-time PBA champion mentor bared that he was delighted to see his players in good physical shape despite the long layoff brought about by COVID-19 pandemic.

“For us coaches, it’s really hard for us dahil hindi namin alam kung paano ime-maintain ng conditioning ng mga players. But we’re relying only on their professionalism,” said Austria.

“I’m so happy with my team dahil nobody gained weight. Talagang playing weight pa rin sila,” he added.

Without their main man June Mar Fajardo to anchor the fort, Austria constantly reminds his players that the 11 other teams would take full advantage of the 6-time league MVP’s absence. Hence, the need to exert more that the usual effort in order to negate their gaping hole in the middle.

“We should be ready. But the good thing is, the players realized that they will play without June Mar, so everybody’s commitment is really there. And I told them that this conference is a free-for-all eh. Everybody’s vying for the championship, so expect a tough challenge mula sa bawa’t isa, dahil alam nila na this is the opportunity for every team,” explained the 1985 PBA Rookie of the Year.

“Ang kumpiyansa ng team ay talagang mataas pa rin, but we will know because after the pandemic, hindi mo alam ang mangyayari. The good thing with this pandemic is, naging equalizer ito dahil ngayon sabay-sabay tayo nag-start ng individual workouts, sabay-sabay tayong pupunta sa bubble.”

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