I type the word Grant too often at work. Isaac can you change that?

So WNBL makes an offer that Canberra HAD to refuse. Why the rush to get finals series started?

Season needs to be finished by a given date.

Sad that neither team felt that any of the options supported their welfare.

Sad that neither team felt that any of the options supported their welfare.

This is nuts

Given that the Capitals' only chance of suiting up for the semi as rescheduled was to draft in replacement players, and their ability to do that is unaffected by today's news, why did we go through the charade of rescheduling?

Scrap the wnbl, remove it from BAs hands asap.

Some of the Canberra players are fuming with the wnbl management.

Is this Molloy's final season?

Yes

"Some of the Canberra players are fuming with the wnbl management."

And rightfully so.

Molloy will always get a gig somewhere

He already has with Wellington Saints and continuing on with the New Zealand women's national team. Amazing job interview skills.

I don't mind the caps fuming at the wnbl but I don’t like them throwing shade at the Perth Lynx. The crap around Perth being a hotspot etc is rubbish, Victoria still has more cases than us yesterday, NSW more than double our case load so why throw this into the mix. They have been travelling to hotspot the whole season, Perth went through all of them in the last round of the season because they hadn’t played enough games away already. Yes it sucks from a league that they don’t have time built in for the finals and that this has occurred to a whole team right at this time but that is not Perth fault.
Also why wouldn’t and shouldn’t Perth demand the deciding game two to be at home, why should Canberra be handed the home court advantage and the number they need to make the final? That’s the team who finishes highest advantage to have.
Of all teams to not have had an easy run this year it’s Perth and to finish 2nd despite only playing 4 games at home to me says we have the two teams who should be in the gf anyway.
Kelsey griffin comments about having to leave a team mate in wa to isolate on their own seems weird but no one cares when Perth had to isolate from their family for months in Ballarat did they.

Absolutely could not agree more noidea. It really sucks for Canberra but is far from the Lynx's fault. The suggestion that they caught covid in Perth is a farce as one of their players tested positive the day after the game. I believe the incubation period for covid is 5 - 6 days so unless Canberra were in Perth for nearly a week prior to the game, that is impossible!?

The Lynx 100% deserve their place in the grand final under the circumstances. They have had a tougher run than any other team in the league. People need to just open their eyes and their minds to see the facts

"....but no one cares when Perth had to isolate from their family for months in Ballarat did they."

People cared. It was ridiculous from day 1. But Basketball WA are Maogowan apologists who do whatever he says with no push back whatsoever.

The players should have told them to fuck off. Put some pressure on for a more reasonable arrangement. Someone has to do that eventually or this shit will continue.

What shit? The shit where WA has been the safest place on earth for the past two years, and is now open to everyone while still handling the pandemic with far less strain on the health system than there has been in a lot of places? Yeah, that's absolutely sucked.

koberulz,

Not to mention it has had the best economic growth (or least economic failure) over the last 2 years, perhaps in the world. The idea that a government that a/ saved more lives. b/ prioritised economic growth maintaining an open economy more than any other state in australia and c/ looked after their health care professionals is considered to have failed is beyond me.

Just look at the SA state election and you will see what happened to leaders who stopped listening to health advice to prioritise Christmas travel over a strong economy first, exactly at the wrong time when a new variant came into play. For people to think that a WNBL team would have been able to put any pressure on changing that is laughable.

I agree not sure what there is to complain about from wa just people outside wa complaining. Can't argue with anything he has done the proof is in the pudding, he waited until we were most vaccinated and then opened and took heat for it. Now with numbers like east had we have no we’re near the deaths experienced and at the end of the day you have nothing if you don’t have your health. I am not old but who am I to say my wants and desire to travel or sit at a crowded game is more important that an 80 yr old who means the world to some people, who am I to say saving them isn’t worth some sacrifices. There has been pain for everyone in this and nothing is perfect but we have to get on with it, was what happened to the WC eagles fair last weekend? It is what it is and so is this, the fact is the caps are not likely to have won the series anyway but they did deserve a chance at challenging for it but not at the cost of anything else.

Let's go Lynx!!

Crowd is a bit disappointing.

Liking this start :)

As a contest, it's a bit of a letdown so far.

Liking this start :)

Boomers clearly saving their defensive effort for the 2nd half.

If Lynx win the title BWA has surpassed all of the Bendat ownership years.

I assumed the team would be going nowhere being back under the state body but it isn't the case.

How have they been able to do it?

Are Melbourne unaware that Garbin can hit the 3??

Melbourne appear to be unaware of a lot of things in this game thus far.

No Clarke for Perth?

Classic Molloy.

She has fallen out of favour in the back half of the season.

Doesn't seem to even be in the venue, though.

Yeah interesting call to go with 2 extra PGs on the bench

Are they only allowed to suit ten? I thought they'd been suiting 12 all year.

Falling out of favor is one thing, but falling below a DP isn't a great sign.

Hope she's not sick.

Clinch-Hoycard didn't travel either. Not sure what the roster rules are.

OH WOW!!! I have just listened to that podcast where perths coach supposedly singled out Cubillo. What a storm in a teacup. Not once did he even say her name. People really should get their facts before they start throwing around accusations. Yes the journalist singled her out but not petrick

Canberra need to calm down. They are doing nothing good for the league right now. The entire season has been affected by covid. Get over it. Everyone did the best they could to get to the end. Stop acting like Liz Cambage and thinking that is the best way to inspire change from an organisation that is doing the best it can to get increase investment in the product. They are making the product look like a circus. Take the lead from players like Lauren Jackson and Patty Mills. They both have inspired a lot of change within basketball in Australia. And not by trying to shame a discredit them.

The wnbl has been very poorly run by BA for what 12-15 years now?

Kelsey Griffin has flown in from the US, taken a 6 figure contract to play in every season she has in the wnbl, and now is trying to bring it down. It's completely unprofessional. She has no respect for what the players before her did to allow the growth to her playing for a 6 figure contract over a 4 month season. She has forgotten what a privilege it is for anyone, man or woman, to play sport for a living. And whether she thinks it or not, male professional athletes do know and respect it as a privilege. Maybe she should retire, get a normal job, go onto social media and blast her employer for something she doesn’t like, and see how quickly she is shown the door.

Canberra's situation could probably be attributed to karma.

It is unfortunate that female athletes have to make more "noise" to fight for better conditions.

Kelsey does have a “real job” as she is a teacher at a local school. Just about every interview I have heard her speak on this she has acknowledged how far the league has come and the sacrifice of the women that have come before her.

She aint on 6 figures.

OH WOW!!! I have just listened to that podcast where perths coach supposedly singled out Cubillo. What a storm in a teacup. Not once did he even say her name. People really should get their facts before they start throwing around accusations. Yes the journalist singled her out but not petrick

Speaking of taking a break from social media - how about that @WNBL official twitter account yesterday.
Their entire game day tweets were

* A poll in the morning asking which team would win
* A tweet **4 hours after the game had finished** telling us the final score and a few individual player stats (which mentioned 5 players, but bizarrely omitted the game's top scorer)

That was it.

Not a reminder on game day of the start time, or how to tune in. To the grand final.
Not a single score update during the game - not even retweeting the teams' updates.

They do the minimal at the best of times so I've been conditioned to not expect a lot, yet it genuinely surprises me how badly they dropped the ball yesterday - one of the biggest days of the WNBL calendar.
If I'm a sponsor then I want eyes on my brand and I kinda expect the league to help facilitate that.

And you luuuc want little change....
A couple of extra social media posts would satisfy you?

Everyone involved is clearly incompetent.

Not sure how you arrived at that bizarre assumption about what would satisfy me. The league is a basket case atm, but a twitter account that is invisible on grand final day says to me that they don't care about even the most basic & easy things. Even the lowest hanging fruit is being neglected, and that is a new low bar.

The teams are surviving on their own, in spite of league HQ rather than with the assistance of it.
I give full credit to every club that is coping with these circumstances and planning to dig in and go next season. Yet for some reason you want to get rid of these clubs who are keeping this league in existence. I still have no idea why. Some of them struggle to find cash. Yet they still do so, and compete, and win, which I think is nothing but admirable thing but you think should get them kicked out.

It's been proven over and over that there is little crossover of fans between NBL and WNBL even when the to teams are under the same management, (Kings/Flames, Wildcats/Lynx, 36ers/Lightning). To suggest the easy solution is to disband the WNBL as it is as just match WNBL teams to NBL clubs is illogical and proven to be unproductive.

As much as I loathe the clear bias the Capitals have received from the WNBL and their "independant panel" this year, fact is the Caps are a WNBL success story. The have a profile in a market without an NBL team.

Townsville also is filling a void in the sport from the loss of a local NBL team.

The Boomers and in turn the new WNBL CEO bother me as they're all talk, and pre-COVID showed some good connection to grassroots but they've lost all that now. It appeared more local Association driven than Boomers driven.

Southside are in a weird position. Moving away from the Rangers they sit in no mans land. Without Ryan they're non-existent. Right now they remind me of the Lightning under the Marino family ownership. Secure with funding but no connection to a local community.

Fact is BA like most State Associations seem to loathe running competitions with any proactiveness and accountability. Good news they take the credit, things go bad its always someone else's fault. I can't think of anything in the last 5-10 years that BA/WNBL has done that was surprisingly positive. They're all failing by a lack of money to spend, good governance, management skills and work ethic. WNBL is the most obvious but its no different to the issues the BigV, VJBL, Waratah/NBL1 East and NBL1 Central all suffer. It's on the Clubs to do all the work, and it's not working.

The sport itself, especially on the female side is at a crossroads. Blowing up the WNBL is IMO not the solution. Understanding your market, employing the right people, empowering them and being proactive is.

^Old school thinking, you cannot apply the past to the present.

Where are all the people who said nbl1 should not go forward and that it would not be any better run than the old state leagues....

Geez, those critics disappeared quickly.

Who do you think actually runs the NBL1 Leagues? The NBL does the promotion, marketing, sponsorships etc. Got them on Kayo. But each Conference is still run by the same people and in most cases on the ground the product itself is no different.

Watch some NBL1 East.

You learn from the past to avoid making the same mistakes. You just think change will just BAM work. It wont.

Nbl1 has its own management seperate from the nbl...

The product is no different? Dude, that's hilarious.

Let's go, Lynx. End this tonight.

Good to see the all girl referee crew continue.

LA certainly came to play tonight

Well that happened. I think.

Close one. Game 3 in Melbourne seems odd.

Boomers tried their best to choke that, Molloy has to be one of the worst long tenure coaches I've ever seen. Can just imagine him at training simulating end of game situations.
Perth by plenty in game 3

So are we ever going to find out why Perth got the ball on that possession towards the end? You could see everyone start to go down that end before the timeout, but the commentary remained completely oblivious.

Boomers player stepped out of bounds on the sideline as she was running down and received the pass.

That was a crazy game. Mabrey Vs Allen was a contest worthy of a Grand Final. Both players really kept their team in it for long stretches.

The Boomers rely so much on their starters but in this one it was even worse - 2 players scored 51 of their 76. Mitchell and Madgen made a combined 2 shots. They'll need to lift to get game 3.

The late game confusion over why Perth ended up with the ball is a clear example of why the commentators in the bunker system has to go. Nobody had any idea.

On the issues with BA, I agree their use of social media is poor. Its a symptom of the problems, not the underlying issue, but its so clear. BA has neglected this part of their engagement for years. For example the Socceroos and Matildas have had great success with their branded social media channels, which provides additional chances for sponsorship and visibility. Why have we never had the work go into this from BA? The Boomers had some good engagement during the Olympics, but that appeared to be from within the camp with no real assistance from BA. It needs to be better.

The Facebook post announcing Maley as MVP initially went out under the BA account instead of the WNBL one. This is rookie level mistakes and has to be better.

Again, I'm not saying they're the only issues - or even the biggest ones - but they're issues that can and should be solved quite easily.

Boomers players were keen to go on more at Mabrey, after a clash with madgen. but were ushered away by coaches.

So happy the Boomers won in Perth to set a final game 3 decider. Can't wait till Saturday!

#breakthecurse

Clarke and Clinch-Hoycard both suiting today. Weird that neither was at game one, then.

Tom Maher in the building.

Well this is going poorly.

9 different officials used across the 3 games. All refereed differently.

Ugly stuff from the Lynx so far.
Hope we can find something to make it interesting, but we look short on ideas offensively.

It's well and truly over now.

Perth have got nothing. What are people going to talk about on here now that Molloy is a championship winner?

Even a broken clock is correct twice a day. If you have enough enough goes with enough money eventually...

Mabrey couldn't hit a barn today.

Credit where it is due - Molloy has crushed it in the coaching battle across this series

The camera work isn't up to scratch. Keeps focusing on random stuff instead of the play.

"Petrik is probably resting his starters so they can go hard in the fourth"? Does Lori Chizik know anything about basketball?

You are painful bro

Plague from China followed by war in Europe thanks to Russia and now Guy Molloy winning a Championship.

What in the world, is this decade even real life?

"Petrik is probably resting his starters so they can go hard in the fourth"? Does Lori Chizik know anything about basketball?

Even a broken clock is correct twice a day. If you have enough enough goes with enough money eventually...

2 weeks ago I wanted Perth to win because I am not a big fan of Molloy, a coach that has failed time after time with all the $$$, players and extras.
But, after hearing petrik speak in the semi and the follow up from some of the players I quickly switched to hoping Molloy (who I thought should have been sacked several years ago) would win.

An abysmal performance from Perth, looked completely disinterested in game 3 and I'm glad they got belted.

Hopefully we see 2 new HC coaches for both teams next season.

Err sorry Gerry Ryan is from the other side of town. Who is bank rolling the Boomers?

Weedy Slug blame COVID.

Kind of weird having an average SBL (NBL1 West) coach taking a WNBL team all the way to a Grand Final.

9 referees is not a great thing. The Grand Final deserves the best referees. Not participation awards. The game 1 crew was a click bait gimmick. Tokenism at best. BA again dropping the ball. Why was it the all girl crew got a social media post but game 2 and 3 didn't? I wonder?

Because it was noteworthy, and the others weren't? Pretty obvious.

Looking forward to alot of player cuts, new arrivals and more gametime for the youth next season.

Um no it's called manufactured click bait and do it on the least important game. BA manufactured its importance and didn’t use a female the rest of the series and then didn’t promote the other 2 crews. Even you can see the hypocrisy in that. If they were the best, they are all FIBA then appoint them too every game. They didn’t and there is a reason why.

What a fitting way to end the season , Foxtel cuts the broadcast during the presentations. I really wonder if this league can continue with BA running it.

Need a petition for sure. Doing absolutely nothing for so so long.

Unbelievable tragic end to the season for Perth. Goes down in NBL history as one of the worst teams ever. Winning by 28 then losing the next two has never been done before.

Perth needs to get better coaches and players because Lynx is costing a packet and is riding on Jack Bendat's generosity.

LOL!

Wow.

You must have just come out of a very long nap Outlook.

I think it was an amazing season for the team. They could have easily closed game 2 but pretty much every player missed a relatively easy lay up in the 3rd n 4th qtrs when the game was on theirs to take and Jackie shot 25% for the game. My biggest issue with the grand final was leaving Cayla on the 3pt line un defended the whole series.

As for the season as a whole.

They start 4 weeks after every other team and play the same number of games in a smaller time bracket.

They base themselves in Ballarat for 6 weeks and get 4 home games in the regular season.

Big injury to Mabrey that she never fully bounced back from and Garbin and Witcomb leave for Opal duty is hard to cover

They went from 2nd last to 2nd and they haven't been in Bendats pocket for over 2 years.