Eagles Rd 8 Preview | Away v Cougars

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The East Perth Eagles women have the chance to stop the Cockburn Cougars reaching 30 straight NBL1 West wins on Friday night before the men will be looking to bounce back against a talented team led by Johny Narkle and Rowan Mackenzie.

It looms as a fascinating Friday night on the road for the Eagles in Round 8 of the NBL1 West season at Wally Hagan Stadium against the Cougars.

The women's contest is first up at 6:20pm followed by the men's clash scheduled to tip-off at 8:10pm.

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WOMEN

Top spot goes on the line on Friday night in the NBL1 West women's competition when the Eagles travel to Wally Hagan Stadium to take on the undefeated defending champion Cockburn Cougars.

Both teams have had standout starts to the season with the Cougars having won their opening six matches to extend their winning streak dating back to last year to 29 while the Eagles have also won six of their seven matches to date including the past three in-a-row.

Cockburn's six wins so far this season have come with an averaging winning margin of 26 points including their past two by a combined 78 points against the South West Slammers and Mandurah Magic.

The Eagles have also been impressive with their six wins so far coming with an average margin of 15 points only intersected with a five-point loss in the road to the Joondalup Wolves.

Now the two teams with a combined 12-1 record to start the 2026 season will lock horns on Friday night and it looms as one of the matches of the year to date in the NBL1 West.

There's added intrigue too with Sarah Mortensen lining up for the Eagles up against a team that she helped lead to the championships in 2023 and 2025, and now she will be back on her old home court for the first time as an opposition player.

Her form is now building nicely too with 44 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists over her last two games with East Perth in wins against the Warwick Senators and Kalamunda Eastern Suns.

Eagles centre Jade Williams will also be playing against Cockburn for the first time and it will be a big test for her up front against Daniel Raber, Jessie Edwards and Darcee Garbin in that Cougars front court.

She's looking forward to the challenge and doesn’t feel there's any extra incentive to try and end their winning run than there is going into any other game.

"I always look forward to any challenge and me personally I'm not going to say I'm not rattled, but I'm going to say we should play every game the same way and we should be playing to our standards," Williams said.

"I'm not going to say it doesn't matter, but to me it doesn’t matter and I want to win the game, but I want to win every single game so I'm excited for sure for the competition, and I believe in our girls.

"We'll give them a good show."

Then there are two teammates of Williams that have that little bit of extra motivation coming into Friday night's game.

The first is Mortensen who has played her previous two seasons in the NBL1 with the Cougars where she was instrumental in them winning two championships.

She also played a big role in building the winning streak they are on but Williams doesn't think her teammates needs that much more motivation than she has for every game.

"I can't speak for Sarah, but I can just go off of her work ethic and how hard she's been working in practice and what she's shown me in games, and if anything I'm happy she's on our side," Williams said.

"She's very talented and I've seen all the work she's been putting in every day in the gym and I can't speak for her, but I think she's ready and I think she's excited for that match up.

"As her teammate, I'm excited to play with her and we'll see what happens on Friday."

Then there is Eagles captain Stacey Barr who not only played for the Warwick Senators in last year's losing Grand Final to the Cougars, but she put in a remarkable individual performance to give her team a chance.

The Senators were right up against it, but Barr gave them a chance all night and finished with 35 points and 13 rebounds and now Williams also expects nothing but another strong showing from her captain come Friday.

"Both of them have experience in this league that I don’t have so once again, I couldn’t tell you exactly how they're feeling," Williams added.

"Maybe they are really fired up, maybe they're nervous, I don’t really know but I don’t think so because I am confident in both of them.

"What I've seen them show our team and show the league so far, they're both very good players so I'm sure they're just focused on going out there and doing what they know how to do.

"I trust them and I'm excited for the game and we'll see what happens, but I don’t think nervousness should come into it. I'm very confident that they are very capable of not only stepping up to the plate, but also performing very really well as they have been all season."

MEN

The tests keep coming for the East Perth Eagles men when they take on a Cockburn Cougars team on the rise on Friday night at Wally Hagan Stadium.

Not much separates the teams coming into the contest either with the Eagles sitting on a 5-3 record after the opening seven rounds with the Cougars only just behind at 4-3.

East Perth are fresh off a vastly contrasting weekend with a 25-point victory against the Eastern Suns on the road on Saturday night before being unable to quite back it up at home on Sunday and losing to the defending champion Geraldton Buccaneers by 28 points.

The Cougars are now on a three-game winning streak coming into Friday night's game having beaten Geraldton, the South West Slammers and the Mandurah Magic to have overcome the 1-3 start to the season.

Both teams aren’t short on star power with NBL26 players David Okwera, Lat Mayen and Jonah Antonio leading the way for an Eagles team including captain Lee Roberts, imports Max Rice and Steve Weingarten, and strong role players Nick Filpo, Jermaine Malie, Ioannis Dimakopoulos and Bing Huang.

There's plenty of talent with the Cougars with two-time Grand Final MVP Johny Narkle making his Cockburn debut last week on the back of his first NBL season with the Illawarra Hawks.

Rowan Mackenzie is now averaging 24 points, five rebounds and four assists over his first four games while import big Joseph Bradshaw is a chance to return and Josh Hunt, Akeem Springs, Seva Chan and Nathan Pond also provide plenty of talent, depth and experience.

The difference between winning and losing for both teams has also been significant this season too with the Eagles winning by an average of 17.8 points and the Cougars by 15.0, while in losses East Perth are averaging losing by 14.7 and Cockburn by 10.7.

All in all it shapes as a mouth watering match up and with the only game of the weekend for the Eagles, they will be throwing everything at a bounce back performance from Sunday's home loss to the Buccs.

Eagles coach Carl Filpo is fully aware of the challenges of taking on the Cougars at Wally Hagan Stadium on a Friday night as well as taking on a team full of talent, confidence and bravado right now too.

"It's loud down there and the players sit right in front of the crowd there, a bit like Kalamunda in a way," Filpo said.

"It's not the easiest place to play, but our guys are professional and I don’t think that will bother them.

"They're a really good team and we're well aware, and I think Rowan is one of the best guards in the league. He's really good and obviously Johny coming in definitely helps them and they've got a great bench.

They're scoring lots of points off their bench and they're up and about so we're going to need to be at our best and we're going to need to be ready for them for sure."