The Just Better Care Roller Hawks’ biggest off-season recruitment drive is complete with the signing of Spanish import Jordi Ruiz. 
Credit: Franzi Möller / Thbulls
Ruiz, a three time Paralympian, has played professionally across Europe for 18 years and is fresh off a championship winning year in Germany’s Bundesliga with RSB Thuringia Bulls.
“I always wanted to go down to Australia, since I started playing, the best players in Europe would go down there to play so it was always kind of a goal for basketball and for life experience,” said Ruiz ahead of his journey to Wollongong.
“I’ve always played against Australian players on our national team so I look forward to seeing how people down there understand basketball.”
“I’m really looking forward to living the experience both on and off the court and I’m just happy I’m going to be in a really good team, I’ve seen them win the title multiple times. Tristan (Knowles) told me they want to compete at a high level, so both things match perfectly.”
The Roller Hawks identified the need for an import at the conclusion of the 2024 season, a move compounded by the retirement of Nick Taylor.
“He very, very quickly went to the top of our short list of players who we wanted to go after. The guy knows how to win. He’s won just about everything you can in Europe. He’s an absolute competitor,” said Roller Hawk Tristan Knowles.
It’s the first time the Roller Hawks have had an import in over a decade, and follows a resurgent national league in 2024 that saw several teams look beyond Australian shores for talent.
“We’ve got heaps and heaps of depth at each end of the classification. We’re absolutely privileged to have players like Huss and Jontee and I guess myself as well and we’ve got heaps of depth there and same at the lower end as well, we’ve got low pointers in abundance so if you look at that midpoint range, we didn’t want Luke (Pople) to having to be playing 40 minutes a game and I think Jordi and Luke will really compliment each other.”
Club President Geoff Adams says bringing in a player of Jordi’s calibre and experience will provide a boost to the club both on and off the court.
“Firstly I want to thank Tristan in particular who led this process, spoke with the players and assessed everyone who expressed interest. I also want to acknowledge those players for taking the time to reach out to us and give us a great group to choose from,” said Adams.
“I also want to thank our sponsors who help put us in a position to do something like this, in particular Just Better Care and Southern Habitat who have given us extra support to make this happen. And also to our committee members James Williams and Brian Gardner who made the arrangements and navigated the visa process on behalf of the club.”
Credit: Franzi Möller / Thbulls
“Bringing a player like Jordi to our club is not just about the on court results. I believe having a player of his experience is going to be great for the development of other players in the team.”
“He’ll also spend time with our junior development players and be part of our community engagement while he’s here. His story of being a full time professional athlete with a disability is very different to a lot of players here in Australia so I look forward to seeing him share that with people throughout the Illawarra while he is here.”
Ruiz is the final piece of a recruitment campaign that has brought Australian squad members Jontee Brown and Tomas Klein to the team along with the return of former NWBL champion Colin Smith plus the additions of Ethan Hallak and Brian Gardner.
“Two weeks out from the start of the season is always an exciting time of year but I’d be lying if I said this season there wasn’t something different about it,” said Knowles.
The Just Better Care Roller Hawks’ season begins June 27th against the Manly Wheel Eagles.
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