Symons focuses on fast, aggressive disciplined Eagles

Tim Symons has a lifetime involvement in basketball to build his philosophies and now he is excited to have the right players in place led by Abby Cubillo and Sasha Goodlett with the East Perth Eagles wanting to hit hard and run fast this NBL1 West season.

Symons has been appointed coach of the Eagles women for the 2025 season, but it's a role he is no stranger to and whether it's been roles as president, on the board, as a sponsor or on the coaching staff, his passion and dedication to East Perth is virtually unequalled.

With his daughter, Jaymie, also part of the Eagles program, Symons thought the time was perfect to put his hand to be coach and put his coaching and management strategies into practice, and see if it can be the catalyst to sustained success in the NBL1.

With the majority of the squad in town for the Eagles including imports Sasha Goodlett and Madison Torresin along with two-time WNBL champion Abby Cubillo, Symons feels his group is as ready as can be to open the season on Friday night against the defending champion Rockingham Flames at home.

"With the players we've got in town, we're definitely well prepared both aerobic-wise and playset-wise," Symons said.

"The structures are well defined and our big import has arrived this week so there will be a little bit of an integration there to come with Maddy T only getting in this week as well.

"So there's a bit of late integration for Round 1, but you don't win it in Round 1 and this is about how we want to be playing throughout the season. We're as best prepared as we can be and we've been at this since October with the biggest thing being our focus on running.

"We needed to develop our aerobic capacity and we've been running our arse off, about 9.2km each session just to build up that base so we can outrun the teams we come up against. We're ready as best we can."

HOW WOMEN'S NBL1 WEST IS SHAPING UP

Whether it's influenced by Kelvin Browner through his junior days or anyone from Adam Forde through to Narelle Henry since, Symons has always had a way he likes basketball to be played and that stemmed from him liking the physicality when he played himself.

The combination of him wanting the Eagles to be aggressive and physical, and then to run harder and faster than their opponents is what his focus has been with the group coming into the new season.

"I've had Kelvin Browner as one of my coaches through my junior career and the style I've always liked to play is an aggressive one," Symons said.

"Even when I was on the court, I might not have carried the ball a whole lot or had the most talent, but I liked being a hitter both on the ball and off the ball.

"The style of play is very much aggressive, it's fast paced and we're prepared for that style of play with all the running work that we've done, and the players we have recruited."

As much as having a distinctive playing style was important for Symons as he embarked on setting up a fresh start for the East Perth women's program, he knew that creating a thriving and successful culture had to be the first step before worrying about anything else.

"I have wanted to do this for a while and probably the biggest influence on my coaching outside of my dad would be Adam Forde," Symons said.

"I speak to Fordey as much as I can and we talked the other day about some strategy, and it's amazing to be able to bounce things off him. I've been around the likes of Narelle Henry and she's pretty inspirational, and I've been involved in the men's program as well.

"So I've been on both sides of things and it's really rewarding to be able to put a squad of likeminded together and getting rid of any toxicity that might have been around.

"We've concentrated on high-performance athletes and people that want to buy into a program. We've probably built this team four times over for different reasons, but with the group we've ended up with I couldn’t be happier and I'm really looking forward to the season."

When trying to put together a playing squad which Symons almost had a clean slate with despite returning players including his daughter Jaymie, Taylor Roberts, Cameron Flynn and Tessa Morrison was to make sure he found the best centre and point guard to start with.

The fact that he has now brought in a two-time WNBL champion as point guard with Cubillo and then a former WNBA championship winner with enormous experience all over the world in Goodlett was as good as Symons could have hoped to find.

For Torresin and Tiahna Sears to be among the other signings who will have a significant and with another still to come in the opening month of the season, and the new coach couldn’t be happier with his group.

"Trying to get a pillar and a post was the hardest thing, and even talking to other coaches like Utley and getting some mentorship, I've had some great support on how to try to recruit the players we need for our system," Symons said.

"We were then hunting that point guard and Abby came out of the blue in some ways. We were in the mix for Ally Wilson before that didn’t work out, but I looked back through the list and Abby Cubillo had the same agent.

"So I called him up to chat about Abby and she was there in my face the whole time and I didn’t even realise. She's already been such a blessing for me and she's the perfect player to run this team and then to have someone like Sasha as our pillar, that gives us everything we wanted and we could just fill in in between."

Above everything else, what Symons has learned through business and basketball is that it's creating a successful culture with the right relationships that means more than anything, and that's what he can already see building with this Eagles women's group.

"East Perth's been a rollercoaster for a long time with the women's program and it needs some strong leadership," Symons said.

"I've managed through Fortescue Metal, through dangerous goods businesses and Centurion, and that important business relationship doesn’t change whatever the organisation is.

"My study has always been about strategic organisational change and this is no different, the parallel is the same coming into a basketball program with what you are trying to build."