Let's hope that 9now have improved their coverage greatly. It’s a free shot with no nbl, looking forward to see how flames go.

Difficult to improve much when 9Now's highest quality setting comes in at a paltry 1,900kbps. Kayo's runs at 4,500kbps or thereabouts. DVDs are around 7,000. Broadcast ESPN around 12,000kbps from memory. A Blu-ray will run at around 25-30,000.

Yeah, I went with YouTube for the Fire-Caps game and that was very watchable.

9Now is inherently bad.
Not appropriate for sports telecasts at all ... possible exception for lawn bowls.

The problem with YouTube is that it doesn't broadcast the Lynx games.

If you just mean Lynx home games then that doesn't bother me at all.
They screwed up the start of Spirit-Lynx but did show most of it.

Was better through kayo only.

They didn't broadcast the first Lynx game at all and didn't broadcast the second until some random point in the middle of the game.

Holy cow, Melbourne injury alot worse than expected, some ligament tear in right ankle.
Out 3 weeks, possibly more. Add that to Potter out entire season.

Poor Caps. Shaneice Swain is going to get the opportunity to show off her game to potential 2023 WNBA drafters.

Tiffany Mitchell had five first quarter turnovers. Surely close to a record?

Backup boomers pg Lily Scanlon, out for season.

Ugly first half. Boomers are lucky to be only down by 7 despite shooting 29% from the field and committing 11 turnovers. Bec Cole was fun to watch, at least.

Some unfit players to start the season.

After watching wallace v rocci it confirms that steph reid is the best point guard in the country.

Amazed that Melbourne only lost that by 10. Glad Mitchell isn't badly injured, was holding my breath on that one - would've been a disaster if she'd gone down like the two Canberra girls.

Broadcast actually wasn't too bad tonight. Jason Bennett is excellent. The new courtside commentator (Candy?) has potential but needs to slow down, she sounded like she'd be sucking helium lol.

That Canada game is the last time we're ever going to see LJ dominate in the post, isn't it? Painful watching her heave up threes today. She could easily take on Nelson-Ododa and Davidson but no, the threes must go up.

I thought Puoch had a good second half on both ends of the court but I think I'd like to forget the rest of it.

Reid I thought was a backup opals pg with no Lavey at WC. Was better than both Rocci and heal in the japan pre games. Chambers didnt play her much, bias for Rocci. Seebohm should be the next opals coach

Always seen Wallace as more of a sg, backup pg if necessary for opals.

Big big fan of Puoch but the worst coach in the league to develop skills under. Should haverejected a coming home to play offer and gone to a place to develop skills. Canberra, Sydney or Townsville...

It was nice to see Lily Carmody get a run, she's going to be a very good player for a long time.

I think the Melbourne Boomers got their last import wrong. Where's Allen playing?

She playing with Ezi and Kunek.

Given that they scored Wallace for the backcourt I think they made the correct call in using the import spot to try to offset the loss of Magbegor.

Star Sydney Flames forward Kalani Purcell is withdrawing from the WNBL23 season due to personal reasons.
Purcell will not suit up for the Flames' opening game this weekend against the Bendigo Spirit.
The club has asked for Purcell’s privacy to be respected at this time.

Dam, tough player out for them.

Which local is ready for the big time?

Juffermans(2005) dp or Gordon potential contract(2004) from Coe eventhough far from ready, should develop better under heal.

Sydney's defence and bench takes a big hit. More pressure on Sjerven to perform. Hope Purcell is ok.

Not a great commentating combo, Graf the analyst, other dude needs more pep.

Is Zitina injured? Can't see her on bench?

Never mind.... Kate Gaze investigating

What you talking about,

The commentary is fantastic, I don't want a screaming talk about nothing commentary. The caller is keeping us informed, something the nbl could learn from.

Quality game.

Well there's our answer.
Aokuso is injured :(

In a moon boot and on crutches.

Townsville imports blitzing Adelaide. Adelaide don't have anybody who can guard Hawkins, who is looking a lot better than she actually is IMO. Besides the early jitters, Townsville looking very comfortable and doing what they want to do pretty easily.

Talbot having to do too much at both ends of the court. The frontcourt role players need to step up to help Talbot or it will be a long season for Adelaide - Batish, Brook and Monroe are all very underwhelming. Also surprised Borlase didn't see more of the ball when she was on court. She's a better scorer than most of the team.

Any reason why Sydney start their season so late or is it just a quirk in the schedule?

Quirk

Good on Mansfield for keeping it interesting to the end

Well that was fun, great game, Townsville stopped passing the ball and Adelaide came right back at them.

Another great turnout in Bendigo...

Yes, disappointing crowd, it's a great basketball stadium and club, not that handy to get to though.
Good quarter, Sydney certainly looking better than last season.
Graff and McQuade very nice on commentary again.

As soon as I said Sydney looks better, Bendigo go on 12 nil run. Heal at prest a defensive liability and chucking up rubbish.

Pressure heal and she falls apart.

Finding the random zooming in the coverage a bit distracting. I don't think we really need to see whoever has the ball up close.

Willoughby has been great but Sydney's guards have been lacking. Bendigo is a polished machine.

Compared to last week, the coverage is a million bucks.

Moving the license to Tassie is a must.

Just a few hundred at the game in Bendigo.
Other places getting between 900-2,400.

Sydney's going to have backcourt defence problems all season - none of Mangakahia, Heal or Panousis are good defenders and they're all small guards to boot. They're going to have to do well on offence to compensate (which they haven't in this game) and it's going to put pressure on the frontline to play good help D and protect the rim.

The zooming in is irritating. Graf is the best commentator we have. Would be good in the NBL too

Maley nailing jump shots is something I need to see more often this season. Good stuff.

Shane heal? Thoughts as a coach?

Feel bad for hibbert.

Has improved on last season in one respect - nearly one full game completed and zero imports sacked so far. That's a new PB.

As a coach too soon to say. This was always going to be a Spirit win.

Smith might have to open the cheque book for coach Heal. They need a rebounding big, a defensive guard with a bit of size.
Bendigo look good.

Early days but looking like


No particular order

Top 4
Southside
Melbourne
Townsville
Bendigo

Bottom 4
Adelaide
Sydney
Perth
Canberra

Does Lavey push Wilson out of s5 in 3 weeks?

Heal's been a pretty average coach throughout his NBL and WNBL coaching career IMO. Yeah, Hibbert was left out in the cold after the Flames ownership change. I don't think his coaching is the main problem the Flames have at the moment though - his recruiting is more problematic.

Good coaches recruit good players, not all super stars but put good rosters together. I would not have thought Heal was short of money this season, very average roster.

Lynx game is unwatchable. Frame rate looks to be single digits.

No problem on my screen, all Perth.

Perth by 24 at half. 52-28.

Arena scoreboard has 51-30

Frame rate isn't the problem here; it's the vision switcher who obviously doesn't understand basketball is a team sport. We want to see the whole offense develop and not show the close-up shot of the ball carrier so we don't know what's happening off the ball.

I want to watch it, but it is so painful on the eyes!

GoldDigger, totally agree and also the switching DURING play can also be a bit disorienting. But it seems to be happening less in the third quarter so maybe they got some feedback?

Also the scoreboard on the coverage is WAY behind the actual game score. How ridiculous lol.

Lynx, daylight and still the lynx. Going to be a long season for caps. Perth could surprise, certainly not out of finals.
Can't believe these two commentators are not working for nbl, compared to some of crap guys there throwing at us.

Lauren Scherf would probably have a triple double if she spent more time in the low block as opposed to clanking threes.

Shaneice Swain - 20 turnovers in 3 games. An interesting coaching challenge for Veal. Minus the turnovers, Swain has serious game but she's not going to progress anywhere unless she fixes the turnover problem.

Good game from Perth but Canberra's defence is just terrible and I'd say they're favourite for wooden spooners (though may need to see a bit more of Sydney before confirming this).

Caps didn't do much to make life hard for us, but still very happy to get a number in the W column. Just about everyone who hit the court did good things.

Especially pleased to see Burrows get more minutes, and make the most of them.

@ SP... are Swain's turnover positive TO? If she is actually being positive, but others around her aren't reading her play, then it will take more time for them to connect. But given the win now league that the WNBL is, that might not happen. Our best era of women talent came when they stayed together and played at AIS rather than going to college... Jackson, Talyor, Snell, Veal, Batkovic.

@ Weedy Slug... looks like Smith wanted a 'big basketball, marketing name' that the wider community knows to try to generate more sponsors, crowd etc etc. Some players don't make great coaches, and Heal is that. Hibbert, given the support, budget and players could have been successful, but wasn't given a chance. And our society doesn't give coaches another chance if they don't win in their first appointment.

Lightning need two imports that can actually play at this level. Both are NBL1 quality, at best.

Funny that Melbourne looked better with Paige Burrows at the point vs Kristy Wallace.

Entertaining game. Looking forward to the second half.

Clutch shooting down the stretch from the Boomers to maintain the lead.

Talbot missing the end with her hammy on ice is not good :/

Borlase continues to impress. Bell, not so much. It doesn't look like Hurst really knows what to do with her on offence? Also had some bad defensive lapses. Melbourne very solid down the stretch. Hope Talbot is ok - too many early season injuries.

The commentary is far superior to anything the nbl throws at us viewers, except for Gaze, they talk about the actual game , know the players and don't rabbit on like they were stars, when very few were good.
Another good game, I’m hoping some games don’t clash with nbl so I can watch more.

Yeah, agreed. It has been a good round of commentary.

Pity the only watchable option for most games is YouTube, which is not officially available to aussies.

Funny seeing all these 2005 players running around on rosters yet only a handful played for jnr n.t.

The commentary is far superior to anything the nbl throws at us viewers, except for Gaze, they talk about the actual game , know the players and don't rabbit on like they were stars, when very few were good.

@weedy Slug

It's really a strange situation with the 2005 kids. Is it because these kids are just there and getting a chance to play due to team injuries or they have just been over looked for national selection or the coach was force to pick all the girls from the COE. They are obviously good enough to be given time in the wnbl so I don’t see why they wouldn’t be good enough to be in a junior AUS team. There definitely is better talent around than some of the COE girls. I felt they got it wrong for the u17 team. Question is if the team was different would have have done better at worlds.

Also I find it very strange that none of the current COE kids have been brought into squads to help with injuries. Jeffermans at Sydney would help now Percell is gone. Canberra definitely needs help and previous COE coach who now coaches Canberra would know better what girls would be up to standard.

Burrows showed that she was the best PG at U18 Nationals and did not get a look in that U17 team. So much better than Twidale, etc. Good to see her getting an opportunity in WNBL

Twidale is really a sg but filled in at pg when they become way too heavily reliant on Shiels bringing the ball up.
Imo Harvey over the tournament did not do well at all and fell down the bench, so too gray, those 2 were not needed Imo, burrows and Martin were better at the time.
When the u18 asia came around, Shiels the only 1 selected from the above.but was moved to backup sf. Loughridge was the starting pg(now contracted at the flyers), backup heal (ncaa) and third choice option Rotunno (flames dp).
If I was the selector, I'd be pushing out Rotunno for burrows and with Loughridge acl, I’d seriously be looking at triple bottom ager Hall.

^^ agreed. Deas as well

They should be moving on alot of Coe players imo to make way for rest of 06 and 07.

Moved already
Borlase-Adelaide contract
Puoch-Southside contract
Loughridge-Southside contract

Should be moved on 04/05
Gray
Clark, go to Perth dp
Hanson
Petrie
Gordon, go to Canberra dp
Juffermans, go to Sydney dp

The rest, all 06
Harvey - Could say several better 06/07 pg options.
Shiels - could be better to go and develop elsewhere, like the flames.
Bird - versatile forward but also alot of other 06/07 options.
Portlock - 6'8 development Center.

Star Sydney Flames forward Kalani Purcell is withdrawing from the WNBL23 season due to personal reasons.
Purcell will not suit up for the Flames' opening game this weekend against the Bendigo Spirit.
The club has asked for Purcell's privacy to be respected at this time.

That's a significant loss. I hope she's ok.

We cannot be more excited for the new mum and dad to be! All the best with parenthood you two

We can’t wait to see your bundle of joy get some buckets just like their amazing parents pic.twitter.com/mLHa0oEIN7

— Sydney Flames (@TheSydneyFlames) November 22, 2022