Captain Stacey embracing Eagles leadership role

Featured image: Mark Filpo (@codexdesignstudio)

While she is a new face herself to the East Perth Eagles, Stacey Barr knew her leadership and experience would be just as crucial as her production this NBL1 West season and she's embracing the role as captain.

When Barr talked to new Eagles coach Jonelle Morley about the pair teaming up once again in the NBL1 West after their championship success at the Warwick Senators, she knew that she would need to continue to emerge as a leader.

She was happy to accept the captaincy role but whether she had that or not, she has become a better and better leader the further her career has gone on and that's been crucial with this Eagles team of 2026.

Sydney Wright and Jade Williams are new to the NBL1 West while along with Barr, Zaya Black, Sarah Mortensen, Jo Odude, Brooke Malone and Amber Land are all new to the Eagles but there never really was that period of growing pains.

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The Eagles won six of the first seven games and nine of the first 11, and that was despite losing Jasmin Fejo to a season-ending knee injury and then her replacement McKenna Dale also succumbing to a knee injury after being on court for 44 seconds.

Despite that, East Perth are sitting in third position at 14-5 with one game of the regular season remaining this Friday night when they host the Cockburn Cougars at Morley Sport and Recreation Centre.

Barr is proud of what the team has been able to do as such a new group and with having to deal with some adversity along the way.

"Jonelle's done an amazing job recruiting and I think that's not just people who are good on the floor, but who are good people off the floor as well," Barr said.

"I think that's really helped us connect as a team and you never know what's going to happen when you bring in a whole new group but I think we've done a really good job with the pieces we have got.

"We also lost Jas who was a major piece to that plan and then got McKenna in and lost her, but without those two pieces I think we've done such a good job to stick together as a unit."

Embracing leadership role

Barr has always been one of the elite players in the league and you don't win two MVP awards and be named to the All-First Team five times without that being the case.

But the further she has gone in her career and she's finding she's getting just as much joy exploding for a 50-point game as she now is being a leader and offering direction to the younger or newer players to the team and to the league.

She is almost like an assistant coach for Morley both at practice and during games out on the floor, and she is enjoying embracing that leadership side of the game more and more now that she's almost a 200-game SBL/NBL1 West player on top of all the other basketball she's played.

"I think it's become more a part of my game the last few years and that's not necessarily always being captain, but just being that voice on the floor and when things are getting a bit out of hand, being that calm to settle everyone back down," Barr said.

"I think it's been an area of my game that's naturally developed and it isn’t something I've really focused on or worked on, but playing with a young group of girls and a group that haven’t played together before, it's been an important part to this season."

The emergence of Brooke Malone

Up until this season when Brooke Malone was playing elsewhere and especially when she'd become a key player at the Perth Redbacks in 2023 and 2024, by playing against her Barr saw a glimpse of what she was capable of.

But she never fully realised what a remarkable all-round talent she is and she couldn’t be happier to see just how well she's now performing with the faith put in her by coach Morley.

As a result, Malone is putting up 16.1 points, 7.6 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.6 steals in almost 33 minutes to be nominated for both the Defensive Player of the Year and Youth Player of the Year awards.

"Yeah, I think she's having her best season yet in NBL1 and I think her athleticism is amazing and the fact that she's now starting to control it," Barr said.

"She's scoring, she's running the floor, she's an awesome defender and she's rebounding and she's hustling. I think she's really taking advantage of that athleticism and putting together a great season."

Finally calling Amber a teammate

Barr joined the Warwick Senators back in 2019 and that just happened to be the same time that Amber Land departed after playing the first 141 games of her SBL career there.

She spent the next three seasons with the Joondalup Wolves including winning a championship in 2020 but raising a family and building her own Land Performance Centre soon took priority.

However, she always had that urge to return to resume career NBL1 career and now is providing some good front court back up to Jade Williams and Jo Odude, but Barr sees her leadership and experience as crucial.

"I never played with Amber until now before but it's been fun to have her enter the team and that knowledge and calm that she brings is really helpful even when she's just sitting on the bench," Barr said.

"It's almost like having another coach on the bench who can talk to those girls who are getting subbed off and put in what she's seeing on the floor because she brings with her a lot of experience and knowledge."

Excited for what's to come

Prior to having last weekend off while the men's team went up to Geraldton, the Eagles had won five of their last six matches to remain in third position with the 14-5 record.

Barr did feel like they weren’t clicking on all cylinders and losses to the Eastern Suns, Rockingham and Perth have likely ended hopes of a top two finish as they fight to remain third now with the game against Cockburn to finish.

"I think like early in the season it was quite exciting putting a new group together and seeing how it was all going to fit," Barr said.

"Then we kinda made it work really early in the season and the last couple of weeks we unfortunately haven’t been playing our best basketball, but I think it makes it really exciting to have this week off and to be able to come back out for this last game and then go into the finals."

Chance to fine tune for finals

While from the outside it still looked as though the Eagles were performing well, internally they didn’t necessarily feel that way so Barr did think the break came at a right time on a number of fronts.

"It did give us the chance to slow down and really focus on us rather than preparing for an opposition so that week was really good for us," Barr said.

"We were able to slow down, watch a lot of film, fix a lot of things in our offence and in our defence so I think that's really going to help us going into the end of the season."

Getting ready for Cockburn game

The Eagles now have one game to go in the regular season and that's when they host the Cougars on Friday night at Morley Sport and Recreation Centre.

Cockburn are already locked into first place as they chase a fourth straight Grand Final appearance but East Perth are 8-1 on their home floor in 2026 and Barr has no doubt they want to go into the post-season with winning form.

"They're such a tough team but I think if we can put all the pieces together and play 40 minutes of our basketball, we'll make it tough for them," Barr said.

"I think that will be great going into finals if we can beat a top team like that. Our main focus is just on Cockburn now and we'll win or lose that game, and then we'll go into finals and focus on whoever we end up playing."