Important game for Southside. They've been very underwhelming. Taking time to gel under Harrower?

Underwhelming indeed. Plenty of talent on that roster to turn things around though.

The bright spot for me has been the play of Dallas Loughridge. She is really looking confident and poised this season.

Was always expecting too much for Southside to gel and come out firing immediately. But they do have some talent - pressure will start building for results.

Pressure in Adelaide shifts to Talbot, Borlase, Bourne & Co. They too have the talent and have underperformed. Change of coach likely to deliver an immediate impact perhaps?

Cracker of a game heading into the 4th

Kunek been solid all season.
Vaughn should be let go, another import should come in or they have no chance.

Shelley the future Australian starting PG, said by many... doesn't look it atm.
Conti in 1 game has looked better.
Jones a slow start to the season but getting more aggressive with each game.

Geelong get it done late, hard to see who will progress to the finals from 3 to 8.

Have never been convinced that Shelley can run the point. Hope she gets her shot going though because right now she's giving them nothing at all. Jones & Conti were both huge!

I wasn't expecting much of a game, and the early going lookws ominous, but it turned into a good 'un.
Jones huge and Conti clutch. What a win.

The lack of rotation off the bench for the flyers hurts them badly.

Jones is legit quality, hard to stop. No 6 draft pick for a reason.

The most disappointing part of the night, was Flyers players leaving the court straight after the loss, leaving heaps of young girls waiting for an autograph etc. Yes your disappointed, even angry, be gee give something to the fans. Surely you can give the kids 10 minutes after a game on a school night. Maybe Jerry is happy with a 1/4 full stadium, can't think that is sustainable.

What a game! Conti making an entrance as she returns to the league from footy! It seemed obvious that although inexperience a factor at the start, Geelong had done their homework.
As for the Flyers coming together & needing time, they have legit veterans and an apparent budget to recruit whatever they want. Agree they should send Vaughn home.

Imagine Cheryl Chambers watching this game. It does beg the question, has Harrower coached enough yet to be coaching at this level? Nat Hurst was fired for not being able to bring a superstar group together. A good player does not guarantee a good coach.

I watched the game on TV so didn't see the team walk off the court post game. Agree that is classless if that was the case. Perhaps a reflection of some culture issues. I look forward to seeing the United girls take a better swing at Sydney over the weekend. It was not good to watch last time.

Adelaide v Canberra also one I’m looking forward to watching. Word on who will coach?

Ernst did not play yet your import centre plays just 4:38 of game time for a stat line completely full of bagels except for committing one foul? Next plane home.

Harrower doesn't use her bench. Often played 4 of her starters 40 minutes in NBL1. Not sure where/how the "she’s a development coach" myth started?

Surely the import could compete against the Israeli national player, she was on a bit early & then late & is a bit of a battler.

Harrower probably is not running the team.

She maybe the Head Coach (Titled) but with her dad Bernie there it is him who is doing it all.

As stated above good players do not always make good coaches and there are examples of that-Andrew Gaze is the classic.

All I've seen Bernie do on game days is consistently call out to a player at what just happens to be the exact time an opposition player is about to release their free-throw attempt!

Flyers: seems that this team lacks any selfless leadership. Certainly don't seem to lack talent. Maybe Leilani would have been a good re-sign after all?

Coach Harrower (jr): having your dad pulling the strings behind you as head coach suggests you are not able to coach yourself. Embarrassing really.

The import: send her home if you don’t want to play her. But maybe if Flyers subbed more the superstars in the top end of the roster would have had more in the tank for overtime. They dominated the first period, and then slowly threw it away.

Let's not take away from the gritty effort from the young Geelong team! But I did not see that coming.

I think an inexperienced head coach having an inexperienced assistant would be a sure-fire recipe for failure, so having Bernie to call on is a positive.
What's the basis for people thinking it's really him pulling the strings? Sounds like baseless BS to me. Why would either of them want that? Makes no sense.

It looks like he's mentoring. But sitting on the bench mentoring implies he’s doing more I must admit.
As I said in previous, perhaps her lack of experience makes managing that hyper experienced group hard. Something isn’t working. No Ernst hurts too of course. Is her injury significant? Her back I think they said?

She doesn't sub enough, she's only one (more) injury away from disaster. None of the teams are super deep this season, and the league itself is underwhelming compared with previous years, but Harrower definitely relies on her starters way too much.
Agree re comments around the import. If she can't get on while they're out their only real "big" player, when else will she?
I think they fell in love with the high-low too much and neglected the rest of their offence. Geelong finally adjusted. Jones and Conti killed them down the stretch.

She doesn't sub enough

Why didn't Southside trap the last possession of regulation? Geelong was obviously going to kill the clock, and they just sat back and waited?

No Ciabattoni tonight, still out with "had a wedding." Not sure that should take a week?

Unfortunate, as the Lynx missed her poise last round, and it's one less option for defending Melbourne, but understandable IMO.

Weird situation with Ciabattoni as had said she was going to Europe before wnbl season, then somehow has managed a full wedding planned here mid season all of a sudden. Would think you would get married during NBL1, not WNBL.

I believe she was originally planning Europe instead of WNBL, and not going over until after the wedding. That also explains her signing on so late in the offseason.

Welcome back, Amy

Easy win for Perth.

Collier not havin a good time.

Trickle-down sookonomics.

Another top defensive game from Gorman.

I thought she did really well on Sami last week, then looked at the stats and saw she had a triple double...

When do the drums start beating for Goriss? Caps are woeful

The Caps are unwatchable. I thought Geelong was bad, the Caps looked atrocious last night. The league is definitely hard on the eyes this season.

Let collier go, get an elite import asap and they might have a chance to climb the ladder.

Caps owners getting suckered every year for the past 4, -focusing on youth prospects and expecting them to win the following year is not working.

Goriss success came when they spent huge coin on nurse, epoupa, tolo, griffin etc and paired them with the best up and coming aussie talent.

Gorman had an absolute shocker shooting last night including 1 - 10 from 3 and Sowah was 0 - 6, then the Lynx spent most of the 4th trying to get Scafidi her first points.

Caps are lucky, it should've been a 40 point win really and all they wanted to do was fight with the refs.!!

Zia Cooke and the Fire have parted ways

Agree re: gorris.
The club got rid of veal and convinced Melbourne to stay promising change in results with new leadership I assume.
Watched the game today and collier seems to go from bad to worse. Agree re: Geelong being hard to watch. They just can't get any buckets easily. Canberra seem completely undisciplined.

Zia Cooke and the Fire have parted ways

Do we know why?

Maybe Goriss, Lucas and Molloy are all the same. Good talkers to management and owners but need a team of experienced quality players to be successful. How many of the coaches can really build a strong winning team with a group of subpar players or a team of very young talented players lacking experience ?

Usually not being able to fit in. The wnbl looks like a bush league compared to the u.s and europe and alot more money elsewhere in asia.

Maybe-Seebohm really the only one who has achieved alot with little.

Thought hibbert was also done dirty with the dipshit owners moving her on for Shane heal.

Generally I agree regarding Lucas, but he's done alright this year so far: 4-4 despite fielding the least talented side in the comp (in my opinion).

Seebohm's on another level compared to everyone else.

The WNBL has such a strange dynamic of recycling mediocre coaches, or fast tracking ex-players that simply don't have the coaching experience.

Obviously some of the better coaches outside these circles can't make the WNBL work financially and/or logistically as a head coach, but there are definitely some that are just being overlooked.

Seebohm is not having the best season and you would have to ask the question why did they lose all the players from last seasons roster.
You look at no Reid,Kunek,Whitcombe and Akuso.

Big losses with those players going.

Is it lack of money or maybe Seebohm had some issues and the players did not want to stay.

Umm money, Reid and Aokuso are on big bucks, so too Whitcomb.
Kunek has the nbl gig also.

Let us hope that it is either a case of players wanting new overseas challenges, wanting to live closer to close friends or it is a money issue for Seebohm. It is hard for any coach to keep everyone together for a long time these days. Who is his mentor and will he be able to reach Opal head coach status one day ?

Sydney vs Geelong hopefully is a better outing than last time. Can Geelong turn it into a grind is probably the question. Also keen for Adelaide's first outing without Hurst.

Re: Alice, I wonder what the nbl pays for their commentating/game analysis roles.
Townsville isn't the most desirable destination unless you're getting paid well.
Will be very interested to see how Adelaide go from here.

Turnovers galore Geelong vs Sydney.

Thought Swain had a shocker, forcin it unnecessarily. 12 turnovers.
Poor across the board apart from George.

Sydney still get the much needed win...

Townsville almost got Bendigo again. Whitcomb held to 9 pts in the 2nd half and Bendigo struggled to get any sort of offence going when Whitcomb can't get the ball. Having Griffin coming off the bench now and getting some game time into her is making Bendigo look almost unbeatable at this stage of the year.

Can't see Townsville getting another Import they have people there now that are all willing to play in the Style that Seebohm wants, thought it was interesting the way the commentators said that Cooke was unavailable for the rest of the Season. It's okay to say that they sacked her. Quality game.

Turned off Sydney vs Geelong at Halftime like watching two very average NBL1 teams go around. Swain is a complete enigma; she could be anything or just kind of fade away as time goes by. Its good when its good but ....

Well Well visiting friends here in lovely Adelaide & at the WNBL game & guess who's sitting in the VIP suite?

None other than Scott Ninnis??

The next Lightning coach perhaps

possibly Cruella, apparently he was at both games last weekend in Melbourne/Geelong

Basham a liability late - score first mentality

He was given the stat sheets at the end of each quarter so it's looking like he is the replacement.

Well Adelaide got over the line and collier came to play. an odd game...

Horrible shooting night for Melbourne, caps let one go tonight.

It looked like neither Caps or Lightning wanted the win.

Jade Melbourne's offensive game & shooting percentage rate has fallen off a cliff, her last 2 games she’s scored 7pts total! Gorris just lets her do whatever she wants where I believe Veal had her playing more down hill on multiple pick n rolls in their offense last year. Perhaps she could benefit from playing off the ball at times as well throughout the game?

who is coaching the lightning ?

very hard to watch game. Melbourne looked to be loving her basketball under Veal, not so much under Goriss. Talbot was even worse than she has been, feeling guilty perhaps??

The AC coached today, looking like Ninnis moving forward

I also heard ninnis. Lucky he has all that experience coaching women. It's easier than coaching men anyway,right? Perfect outcome really.

*sarcasm incase that’s not obvious*

Disappointed to see another female coach fall. Perhaps promoted too early, perhaps not actually ready? Won’t know without actually being in the program. But clearly
Lost her team’s belief. Maybe the answer is to hire actual coaches rather than just past players. Just a thought.
Heard Cheryl Chambers was interested. Surely last season’s championship coach gets an interview?

Sounds like Chambers is too late, but if it's not Ninnis surely she gets interviewed at least

Talbot should look at some type of refund back to Lightning at the end of the season, she's taking money under false pretences...

Im with ya... has been a no show for the lightning. Very disappointing.
If I was Sandy, Id think about dropping her from the opals next tourney. Has not played the SG role well for the opals and we have better options in that position atm.
As a backup 3, think Kunek is probably the better option right now too.

The Paris lineup of Melbourne, Whitcomb, Talbot, Smith, Magbegor should see Allen return as the starter and Kunek become the backup 3. I got Talbot as 12th player or on the fringe looking in, so too Atwell(although she has only recently returned -but her defense and ball handling still needs a ton of work)

that's the problem, who does Sandy replace her with. She generally uses her as her defensive stopper, so it can't be Atwell

Not sure if Kunek is over being omitted from the Olympic team , she left Paris in a hurry.

Atwell seems to think that limited minutes means only playing on the offensive end , her defence since she came back is non existent .
If Seebohm is the Coach there maybe a few new faces in there.

Nah, you don't dump a player who is consistently in the opals top performers just because she is starting slowly in a WNBL season after coming off a string of serious injuries. That's ridiculous.

If a world cup was happening next month then sure, there could be some debate. But come on, this talk is just silliness at this point of the Opals' cycle.


---


Kudos to Charli Collier for bouncing back from a rough run of games and getting POTW.
I don't agree at all with her winning the award given how much of a liability she was over here in the Lynx loss, and the fact that she went 0-2 for the round, but responding with 27 & 22 would have been heartening for the Caps.

Re Steph Talbot: wouldn't blame her for being down on performance. After all she tried to do for the dysfunctional Sparks last WNBA season only to have those efforts disrespected by the franchise not including her in their protected 6 for the expansion draft, I'd say she's more than happy to put everything into the golden future overseas with the Valkyries.

S5
Melbourne
Whitcomb
Allen
Smith
Magbegor


The rest
PG Reid, Rocci, Heal, Amoore
SG Borlase, Wilson, Swain, Sowah, Woods, Wallace, Nicholson
SF Talbot, Kunek, Atwell, Bibby, Sharp, Puoch
PF Garbin, Froling, Maley, Bourne, Horvat, Blicavs
C George, Tolo, Aokuso, Scherf

7 spots from above.

A statement regarding a score discrepancy: Bendigo vs Townsville

December 18, 2024

The WNBL wishes to advise a score for the Townsville Fire was missed and not recorded in the Bendigo Spirit v Townsville Fire game on Saturday, December 14, which has a recorded final score of 86-80.

There was an error in the process and handling of the scores which was highlighted and considered at half-time, however wasn't correctly amended at that time. After the game the WNBL was able to conduct a thorough review and investigation into the incident, which found that a score was missed in the second quarter, and that the final score should have been 86-82, an increase of 2 points to the Townsville Fire.

The WNBL operates under FIBA rules, which state 'errors are no longer correctable after the ball becomes dead when the game clock sounds for the end of the game’ (rule 44.3.2).

As a result, the 86-80 Bendigo Spirit’ win stands.