Symons still backs Eagles to reach potential

Image credit: Mark Filpo (@codexdesignstudio)

East Perth Eagles women's coach Tim Symons wants his team to enter the NBL1 West finals with winning momentum and still believes they are better than their record shows, and is looking forward to them proving that.

To start his first season as coach of the Eagles after a lifetime of involvement in the club including as president, Symons saw East Perth open up 2025 winning six of the first seven games and only conceding 78.7 points a game.

Symons was seeing everything he envisioned coming together, but the last 12 games haven’t quite been at the same level especially defensively where they have given up 92.3 points of which they have lost eight of.

Despite that, East Perth are guaranteed of playing finals heading into the last game of the regular season this Friday night away to the Joondalup Wolves and Symons is challenging his group to stay focused on reaching their potential still in 2025.

"I can't take away from what our plan was and that as to recruit a team that could be top four," Symons said.

"I still believe this team is a top four group but we can't go through the start of the season where we were 6-1, and then come out the back end as one of the worst defensive teams in the top eight.

"We've lost our way and if I could put my finger on it and had a golden recipe as to why, I'd be adjusting it straight away. We had a pretty tough meeting as a group on Tuesday about not playing the victim cards, not worrying about the referee calls, and just focusing on the things we can control.

"It's not about adjusting, we just have to be tough and resilient as a team, and not drop our heads. The minute we do drop our heads it permeates through the group.

"While I'm really excited first year in to be in the finals which is an awesome achievement for this group, we have under achieved with our record from where we should have been. But there's still time to make up for that."

Going into the last game of the regular season on Friday night at Arena Joondalup against the Wolves and the Eagles currently sit eighth, but there is a chance to finish higher with a win and to potentially even earn a home final.

The Wolfpack might be out of finals contention, but have won four of their past five matches, but Symons has no interest in letting them feel good about themselves with a strong finish while being out of the playoff hunt.

"We're definitely not looking to make the end of Wanneroo's season any more enjoyable than it currently is outside the eight," Symons said.

"We're not about to give them some accolades to think that they belong in the eight.

"We're not about to give them any reason to feel any better about themselves."

What Symons wants above everything else to get out of Friday night's game against Joondalup is for the Eagles to play the way they want to play for four quarters, and to build that confidence to take into a cut-throat final next weekend.

"Obviously it gets really serious the week after but we prepare to play Wanneroo with the scout we know, love and trust," Symons said.

"They love to jack the three ball and love the perimeter so we'll try to take that away from them. Saturday will then be what it will be, but at the end of the day we just have to execute on Friday and go into the finals with a win under our belt.

"That keeps the ethos right with our mindset that we're doing the right stuff especially given the back end of the season for us has been very up and down, and inconsistent. We just have to come out and play to our capability for four quarters."

Following Friday night's game, the NBL1 West awards night will take place on Saturday night where Symons not only expects Abby Cubillo and Sasha Goodlett to be well recognised, but they aren't the only two.

"I would hope our girls get recognised and it goes broader than Sasha and Abby," Symons said.

"Awatea Leach has got to be up there with the Best Defensive Player and I know there's others in the league around the place, but that kid is so tenacious where I look at her run with knockout runs with blind screens, and she's so tough.

"She does all the grubby stuff and has guarded any of the one through four players. She doesn’t mind a tough mark up so I would be expecting her to get some accolades for that.

"Then there's Ari van Vliet and if I look through the process this year, she's gone from going from earning one, two or three minutes and then last weekend she played 20 and scored 10.

"She boxes out better than anyone else so she's going to be a force to be reckoned with. Then I'm really happy with our Best Sixth Man which is Taylor Roberts.

"She might have been a bit hit and miss at times, but she has come off the bench and to knockdown what she's done I think she should come into calculations for that too."