Aggression, ATN position switch, honouring the Perth Orioles: the forces behind West Coast Fever’s fight for first premiership

Request Ryan to do likewise about Bruce he replies, “A competitive animal.”

Fever’s leadership duo is a combination of many things. A long-time servant and a new one. The only male head coach in the competition, who made a horror start at the highest level, plus the longest-serving captain of the league’s most remote and historically unsuccessful club.

The Victorian-bred and well-travelled Ryan is the significant newcomer to the group that on Sunday will contest its third grand final in five years. Once again, Fever will fight to bury its status as the only club among the five remaining from the former trans-Tasman championship days never to have won a premiership.

WA favourite Bruce, who made her debut in 2013, is the enduring homegrown presence. Before being rebadged, the club spent its first 11 years as the Perth Orioles, failing to finish higher than third-last from 1997-2007. As the Fever, it played finals for the first time in 2015, and contested its maiden decider only after shooting colossus Jhaniele Fowler’s arrival in 2018.

“We’ve been really honest in our conversations about what we’re here to achieve this year, and we’ve not shying away from the fact that we want to create history for West Coast Fever and Perth Orioles, and become the team that wins the first ever premiership,’’ says Ryan, the former Australian men’s captain who succeeded Diamonds coach Stacey Marinkovich at West Coast last September.

“We know that we need to be in the moment and execute and deliver to do that, but we certainly know that we represent all of the people who have gone before us, and we know that we’re in a great phase of the club’s era right now that we want to maximise that opportunity.

“So it is the dream, we are chasing it hard, and we believe we can do it. We’ve got an opportunity and, when opportunity knocks, you’ve got to be the first one to take it.’’

The last hurdle comes in the form of the Melbourne Vixens, who won a 55-54 preliminary final thriller against the Giants at John Cain Arena on Saturday night.

In the euphoric aftermath of a nine-goal thrashing of the Vixens a week earlier on the same court, a victory that flattered the hosts on the scoreboard but in no other way, Bruce was honest about the significance of long-awaited grand final glory.

“Oh, it’d mean the absolute world. We’ve definitely done a lot of recognising and acknowledging our history this year and bringing past players back into our environment, so it would be as much about us and as [it is] for the Orioles girls,’’ she said of the 25 flagless years.

“WA deserves it. They’ve supported us for so long. Had our back through some really tough years too, so just bringing a trophy home for the WA community would be the aim.’’

*****

For all his successes as a player and in several of his head coach and assistant roles — starting with the Geelong College Year 7/8 girls while still just 15 himself, via UK Superleague clubs Manchester Thunder and Leeds’ Rhinos and the national job with Northern Ireland — Ryan knows a fair bit about failure, too.

In particular when, in 2016 at the age of 31, he became the youngest-ever coach of an Australian franchise, the Adelaide Thunderbirds, while still captaining the Victorian Cyclones and Australian Sonix, whom he represented for 17 and 14 years respectively.

It didn’t end well. Didn’t start well, either, to be honest. Just wasn’t good.

Ryan, who acknowledged later that he had been given the job too soon, was sacked at the end of 2018 after 27 straight losses and just one win during a period he regards as the toughest of both his career and his life.

Undeterred, the qualified sports journalist and experienced broadcaster sought to fill in the gaps and continue his education in the UK, leading Northern Ireland to 10th place at the 2019 World Cup, then as the foundation head coach and high performance director of the Rhinos, who won the Superleague title in 2021.

This time, when his chance came at Fever, Ryan felt far better prepared. To be fair, he also inherited a high-quality and settled team book-ended by Fowler and Bruce, with the only change coming through Rudi Ellis as the third defender in place of Liv Lewis.

“Dan knew that we had a really good foundation and he’s just been able to take our game plan to a whole other level — acknowledging that we have got 10 incredible players, and we’ve got to use each others’ strengths and assets really well, and it’s allowed each other to shine,’’ says Bruce.

“He’s really passionate about working with each individual athlete to make sure that they’re bringing their best version [of themselves]. Like, he’s taken Alice from a really good goal attack to a phenomenal wing attack.’’

*****

Alice Teague-Neeld, that is.

Not since Sharelle McMahon two decades earlier had another footballer’s daughter, former Diamond Eloise Southby, heard such a buzz around a young shooter as when Teague-Neeld — whose dad Mark Neeld played for Geelong and Richmond and coached Melbourne — was signed by the Vixens in 2015, aged 17.

“I haven‘t seen someone just want to take the game on as much and have that competitive streak since Sharelle,” Southby, a 34-Test shooter, Commonwealth Games gold medallist and multiple premiership player told this reporter at the time.

“Different styles [of players], but they‘ve got the same look, and when I see that, as a coach, I’m like, ’Yeaahhh, yep, give me this person, I want to work with them’, Because they love it, and you can’t teach it. It’s just in you somewhere.”

Except that, after joining the inaugural Magpies squad for 2018, the youngster struggled for impact and court-time in what collectively was a disappointing attack end in an underachieving team and her 2019 signing by the Fever as champion Nat Medhurst was controversially discarded was questioned by many.

Largely playing a feeding role — which admittedly does tend to happen when you’re out of the front of the prolific Fowler — before much-improved 2020/2021 seasons but still in an only modest scoring role, Teague-Neeld has now been repurposed while Sasha Glasgow has taken over the GA bib.

And very effectively so.

“I know. Crazy! It’s been a really good year, I’ve really enjoyed the challenge of wing attack, something different, and I’ve been playing goal attack for basically my whole career, so it’s been quite fun playing something different,’’ Teague-Neeld says.

“You obviously don’t have the pressure of shooting, so you can just focus on the running and passing and feeding and let Jhaniele and Sash do that.’’

The switch was only made late in the pre-season and happened “kind of naturally” as Teague-Neeld explains it, when Diamonds and other international players such as Fowler and Stacey Francis-Bayman were away.

“So we just kind of filled spots and it just kinda ended up that way,” Teague-Neeld recalls.

Her preference?

“At the moment I’m really enjoying wing attack.’’

In the process, Bruce has hailed the influence of veteran training partner and occasional replacement player Chelsea Pitman in facilitating the positional switch.

“Al’s always had the smarts, she’s such a smart, smart attacker and having someone like Chelse here too, has really helped. She can just pick Chelsea’s brain and she’s putting that out there, so it’s not a shock that Al’s been able to get there, but just the way she’s been taking on world-class defenders and absolutely carving them up, it’s been so impressive.

“She sights Jhaniele really well and then also sights Sash on that rip open, so I’m so proud of her. I don’t think I could transition to another position like she has.’’

The semi-final was Teague-Neeld’s best performance of the year, perhaps ever at this level, and hailed by Ryan as one of the finest by any wing attack all season, as she racked up the feeding and other numbers against both Kate Eddy and the Commonwealth Games-bound Kate Moloney.

Her work rate was such that Teague-Neeld finished the game on the bench after cramping late in that destruction of the Vixens, potentially as the missing piece for the Fever, whose greatest vulnerability has been its midcourt.

Ryan believes the 26-year-old’s creativity, craftiness and sure passing is well suited to the wing attack role — while admitting to being a fan of Teague-Neeld’s goal attack game, too.

“She’s loving her netball and I think it’s just great for people to see how good she really is at playing this game in her brain. It’s her best weapon,’’ says Ryan.

“It was very late in the piece heading into round one where we made that shift with her, and I feel like the transverse line has always been an area where Fever have struggled a little bit in the past and I really felt that her smarts and her strength across that line have really added another string to our bow.

“But I also think the more she plays wing attack it will actually enhance her goal attack game, too, because we still throw her in rotations at goal attack in training and she doesn’t skip a beat.

“So there’s a new level of freedom in how she’s playing the game now and she’s such a valuable asset to our team. We’re a team of 10 and when everyone contributes, things like that can happen.’’

*****

Bruce was far from the (maddened) crowd’s favourite on semi-final night. A variety of factors, including her muscular, in-your-face style — coupled with her familiar, “Who, me?” disbelief when calls for contacts — has made her the league’s most penalised player. At one point during the match, she received a caution from the umpire. Still, Bruce drew a louder than normal response from the pro-Vixens’ mob.

“Yeah, and that’s all right. It is what is,’’ Bruce said. “I play the game hard, play for the club, and then after I step off it I’m a different person, so (it’s) being able to separate the two.’’

Ryan explained it as, “You always want to get stuck into the players who can do most damage when they’re on the opposition team’’, hailing one of Bruce’s best games of the season.

“I love, love, love watching her move,” Ryan says.

“I love watching the way she attacks training, I love the aggression which she plays with and she can put the fear of God in her opponents and I just think she’s an absolute mongrel when she’s at her best, and that’s what every goal keeper should be.

“You don’t win ball playin’ nice, so get in there and get stuck in.’’

It is part of a tweaked defence end to which Jess Antiss made a welcome return in round 14, and in which Sunday Aryang, as the first African-born Diamond, was outstanding in tandem with Bruce, who, behind former Fever and Diamonds teammate Caitlin Bassett, is one of the two best players WA has produced in the past two decades.

“We’ve actually shifted the way we play defence the last couple of weeks, and we’re getting more hands to ball and we’re being a little bit more assertive in a first ball contest,’’ Ryan says.

“Teams were scoring a lot of goals on us throughout the entire season and we weren’t ranked as one of the better defensive units, so we’ve made some shifts and I thought the way we played [in the major semi] really nullified the Vixens’ game plan.’’

Vixens’ keeper Emily Mannix, who was responsible for the matchwinning interception against the Giants, will have the big job – again – on Fowler. She also speaks with typical honesty about the Fever rivalry.

“I think it’s getting stronger and stronger every year, and I think that’s good in sport that you have someone you feel like you just absolutely want to beat. That’s definitely there with Fever. And I‘m sure they feel exactly the same way about us,” Mannix says.

“Which sort of does make that game even more heightened and intense and even more of a spectacle to watch, I guess, because you do know that existing history between the clubs now. So I think it’s great. I’m super-close with Alice and we laugh about that stuff all the time.

“There’s no one in that team that I dislike, personally, but as a team, as Fever, you’re like, ‘Oh, nuh, don’t like them!’, Which I think creates something really good.

“There’s just something about it! Whether it’s those puke-green dresses or something, I don’t know!’’

*****

Bruce, Fowler, Anstiss, Francis-Bayman and Verity Simmons remain from the Fever’s first grand final side that was upset by the Sunshine Coast Lightning at Perth Arena in 2018.

Two years later, only new Aryang, Ellis and Emma Cosh were not part of the match-day 10 that lost an agonising nail-chewer to the Vixens in the Queensland hub.

Perth turned green for the occasion four years ago, and green also describes much of the Fever collective, in a big-game sense, before they last frocked up at home for the big dance.

“I think we’re just a lot more mature than 2018 — you know, first proper finals appearance for our group, and I think we’ve learnt a lot about managing our time and our energy a lot better,’’ says Bruce.

Back then, Ryan was still in the UK, trying to gain more experience in different roles and environments ahead of a Super Netball return that was always the goal, and success the ultimate end game.

As it is for the West Coast Fever, whom Medhurst has described in one Code Sports column as having been on “a journey of endless years of being comfortable with failure; of growth and rebuilding; and recent seasons with more scandal and intrigue than an episode of Desperate Housewives’’.

But this is same group that Dan Ryan called into a huddle on John Cain Arena amid netball-style Saturday night fever to declare, “That is how you show up when it matters the most. Stay in this moment. Enjoy it. We deserve it. Soak it in. We’re going to the grand final.’’

Again. History beckons. Third time lucky.

Maybe.