Foley wins MVP.
Most inspirational opening speech goes to Carla Boyd... My god that was a shocker, talk about kicking the girls while they're down!

Who got the other awards on the night?

What did Carla say in her speech?
Any other news from the night?

Most stupid speech I've ever heard, she made George Bush sound inteligent.
She started off by saying people keep asking her how well she thinks the team performed this year and went on to say that it doesn't matter how they went, the main thing is they got into the finals, and they have always got into the finals and that's far more important than how the girls performed, blah blah blah I tuned out for the rest.

Christ, anyone would think they finished at the bottom of the ladder. It's a pity no one asked any of the girls how they thought Carla performed in her role during the season.

Who won awards?

Mia won the Rachael Sporn award
Dukie won the coach's award
Marita won some other award.. (can't remember what it's called - The lame one)

I think Marita won the best team man award.

Good to see that Foley won the MVP, even though she had an average year by her standards, she was still the stand out player.

Surprised Sam Woosnam only got 9 votes.
Sounds like she was snubbed by the coaches in the voting.

The amount everyone pays out the marino's on here, id like to see him sell the club so you all can watch how much it'll sink. I guarantee during this whole finacial crisis nobody else will put the amount of money into the club that they do. Your roster will shrink, the games will have to be played at wayville again, and the team wont enjoy half the luxuries they do now. You might get rid of ang, but you'll probably get rid of all your money hungry stars too

I'm not a big Angela Marino fan but the above Anon post is spot on the money. If she goes, and he sells, it will be trouble for the Lightning. The girls that enjoy the nice dollars and luxuries that go along with it wont stick around if the contract cant be matched and will see SA womens basketball suffer.

Surely putting up with Angela is a small price to pay to see the Lightning be competitive in the WNBL and give our up and coming juniors something to aspire to and keep them in the state.

Maybe Vince didn't want Angela to win anything to avoid everyone the embarrassment of having to listen to her give a speech. Her public speaking skills are even more lacking than Carla's.

I'm not convinced there is no other interest from anyone else owning the club.
I love how everyone paints the Marino's as being the saviour of Women's basketball in SA completely overlooking the fact that the club has done less this year to promote the Lightning and women's basketball than ever before.

In terms of professionalism they seem to be going backwards, not moving forwards.

Maybe if the club treated the players with a bit more respect (and this goes for the 36ers too by the way) they wouldn't have to throw big dollars at them to keep them here.

In some ways I feel sorry for Angela, surely she must realise that her position on the roster is more because of her surname than her skill set. Pity it's also at the expense of ever getting another decent point guard in the team.

how many years has the lightning been functioning for before the marino's took over?! how many chamionships did they win before the marino's were on scene?? i highly doubt they'd be brought to their knees if they racked off like they should.

geez, i dont think any of you actually realise how over paid the lightning roster is compared to ANY other club in the league. They spend ALL there money on their roster and facilities and thats probably where the promoting is falling short... Please correct me if im wrong, but isnt Sam Woosnam there marketing person? maybe thats the problem. Someone who probably just passed high school, wouldnt have a degree, so probably has no real idea what she's doing.

I think it's ironic that someone feels the need to mention that "finishing high school" or "having a degree" would be relevant to the topic and then use the word "there/their" incorrectly in their posting.

Maybe as long time lightning supporters, we see it as extremely embarrassing for the club and ourselves to be able to see what is going on, it's blatant. No one in their right mind can possibly argue that Angela's position on the team is warranted by her skill, game maturity or court smarts. There are other gun point guards in this state that are actually capable of being a dedicated ball handler and running the team (on court)... But she is purely and simply there because her dad owns the team, blocking anyone who actually deserves a spot on the roster and even if they are lucky enough to get on the roster, good luck getting any court time coz the coach is too scared to put anyone in front of her.

I cannot fathom that they are not embarrassed about it themselves.

With respect Isaac you made some interesting comments given you don't even go to any of the Lightning games, pretty hard to form an opinion I would have thought without seeing first hand what's going on.
Sure some of the comments are a bit over the top, but at the same time people wouldn't be saying them if they didn't think there was a better way to run the club.
Regardless of whether Angela deserves her position or not, the previous coach was told she was going to be on the team and had no say in the matter.
I can name two SA point guards who I believe are better players.... Phillips and Mahoney.
Both left because they weren't happy with the way the club was being run, feel free to ask them yourselves (in a non threatening off the record way) if you don't believe me.

Mahony was signed by townsville this season and actually had to withdraw due to surgery

Phillips chose to play in Europe as it was seen as a weakness in here game at the International level. Phillips was basically told to leave the WNBL and get some experience playing in the tough Euro system in order to take the next step as an Opal.

The Lightning did actually approach two other point guards in building their team for 08/09 but one decided to stay on the east coast for personal reasons and one decided she didn't want to come to Australia.

The premierships that Jan and the girls acheived in the early/mid 90s came at a huge price. Who funded it? BASA and the State Government.

Remember QUIT were naming rights sponsor? That's the governments way of supporting women's sport. Remember all the big names that played back then. That's thanks to the mums and dads that had to pay huge amounts of money to walk into the door to watch their 8 year old children play the game they love.

The Lightning are not sef sufficent. Even with a tiny admin staff and no marketing budget I would expect the Marino's to loose six figures running the team this year. Do they deserve this when they are putting that much into the club? Hell no.

It isn't even just about the lightning as a club. They are single handedly providing the elite women's basketball pathway for all those young girls in SA

Pretty tough ask to get Mahony to play having just had shoulder surgery, so whoever made the comment about her not currently being good enough, shows how much you really know about what's going on... not only that she signed with townsville before the shoulder saw her forced to take a season off - was going to be premier point guard backed up by flanagan.

I'll just say i'm very much looking forward to Forestville vs. Sturt this ABA season. That's if certain players actually show up.

rofl @ patsy biscut being so brave to attach a false name to her posts!

Who said anything about players not being happy with the coaching staff ??

I'm all for sticking up for people you like or respect but why lie?

I can 100% confirm without question that Mahony was definately not going to be the starting point at Townsville, ever.

Flanagan was recruited as starting PG, Mahony was going to be back up to Flanagan.

If anything maybe we should be asking why the Lightning didn't try and get Flanagan back to Adelaide?

Mahony was a great player pre injury. She was never expected to make it back to WNBL and the fact that she did speaks volumes for her work rate and determination.

But on 07/08 form she was not as good a player as Marino or Flanagan and most neutral people would support that.

Don't lie to try and support your arguement mate, those of us that know the truth know better than to believe such rubbish.

Other than the head coach being quoted in the media as her being the "premier point guard" this is not the appropriate forum to divulge one's sources, but calling another a liar is pretty harsh dude!

07/08 form? When would she have had a chance to get any form? Phillips was the premier point guard for adelaide then (deservedly so), and behind her was always going to be angela, despite whether that was deserved or not.

But you are right in questioning why Flanagan wasn't lured back to Adelaide. That would have definitely seen the team end in a much favourable fashion than what they did this year.

But seriously, it's a moot point as we all know the answer to that don't we....??

Marino played for NZ in Beijing? Credit where it's due, she is a great shooter, and what back up did she have in the NZ team? Didn't see any of their games, but i would imagine not a lot, of course she's going to score a lot!!! duh! If marino was 20cm taller, her position in the team would be warranted, but she is not worthy of point guard duties, starting on a WNBL team.

Mahoney is a Police Officer with SAPOL.
Playing interstate would mean putting her career on hold

not sure if anyones noticed but who else besides Angela (and Kristy Harrower but we know that she should be in Europe)played as point guard in the Olympics? i know she played for New Zealand and not for Australia but still its an achievement. i was a little dark when she first joined the team but she's turned out alright and when i saw her while i was at work experience, she seemed nice enough. seriously guys, dont post if your gonna talk crap, it just ruins the post. this was supposed to be a nice topic talking about what girls got awards but some people just made it a place to pay out the Marino's. as if there hasvent been enough posts for that already,

school's out for summer.....