Fresh Eagles start everything Barr was hoping for

Featured image: Mark Filpo (@codexdesignstudio)

East Perth Eagles captain Stacey Barr was ready for a fresh NBL1 West start, was ready to embrace the playing style coach Jonelle Morley wanted to implement and is pleasantly surprised how quickly it's coming together with the current 8-2 record.

Barr has already put together one of the all-time great SBL/NBL1 West careers having now played 182 games across the Willetton Tigers, Warwick Senators and now Eagles.

Along the way she has played in three Grand Finals and was instrumental in the Senators winning both the NBL1 West championship and NBL1 National Finals in 2022, and has been a two-time MVP winner and five times named to the All-First Team.

But she was after a fresh start after a spectacular individual Grand Final performance for Warwick last year at RAC Arena in the eventual loss to the Cockburn Cougars, and reconnecting with Morley as her coach and playing with the Eagles soon became the ideal fit for her.

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Barr wasn’t a complete stranger to East Perth when she was on board for 2026, after all she did have a two-game stint back in the 2018 season before she returned for Melbourne.

Barr got up 49 shots in those two appearances for 40 points with 16 rebounds and then once she was back in Perth, she joined the Senators in 2019 and the rest was history with her going on to spend the next seven seasons there for MVP awards in 2019 and 2022.

But it's fair to say the East Perth of 2018 to the one of 2026 is unrecognisable and that's everything from the club administration itself, to the team that she's now part of and coaching staff, and even the Peter Campbell Basketball Arena that now exists at Morley Sport and Recreation Centre.

Even beyond that, it's the connection the Eagles now have with the local community that has blown Barr away so far and that she's fully embracing.

"It was back in 2018 when I got the call from Tanya Fisher to come down and train with the girls, and play a few games," Barr said.

"I'd actually signed back over east and was moving home to where my family was and had signed with Frankston Blues to play in the SEABL.

"So I got a few games in before I left and the club has come a long way and it's been nice to come back here and see how far they've progressed.

"Game nights are a great experience and getting to see the juniors along the bench yelling your name out, and wanting your signature after every game, it's good to see that community feel at the club and how far things have come. And I'm loving being part of it."

The move to join the Eagles

As for what the thinking for Barr to move on after seven seasons, three Grand Finals and 125 gams with the Senators, there was a whole range of things that blended together for her to think the timing was right.

The combination of wanting to reconnect with coach Jonelle Morley after the success they had especially in 2022 with the Senators was one thing and then even more so with the team she was putting together with the Eagles, and the style of play she wanted to implement.

Barr instantly wanted to be part of that and then she just simply felt the timing was right for a fresh start.

And now she is putting up 19.1 points, 8.5 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 2.0 steals a game on a team with an 8-2 record and she has no doubt it was the right decision.

"It was nice to reconnect with Jonelle and we obviously had a successful season in 2022 at Warwick together so it was nice to reconnect with her," Barr said.

"A fresh start is always good and meeting new people, and playing I guess a bit of a different brand of basketball for me personally was good too. My game is changing a little bit within this team and I'm finding a new role so I'm enjoying that.

"I mean, I'm still getting up a lot of shots and I'd like to be a little bit more efficient, but it's nice to look at the stats sheet at the end of the game and see five, six girls in double figures. We're doing a good job of spreading the scoring load and I think that's contributing to us winning games."

Double header weekend

The Eagles women played their first double header last weekend and held out the Perry Lakes Hawks on the road for the two-point win on Friday night before getting one back on the Joondalup Wolves on Saturday to stay undefeated this season at home with the 15-point victory.

While it wasn’t all smooth sailing across the 80 minutes in less than 24 hours, Barr was happy to come away with the pair of wins and to now sit at 8-2 at the exact halfway point of the season.

"It's always good to get a double header win so I think we did a good job to grind out that first one on Friday night," Barr said.

"We made it hard for ourselves but it's good to know that we can win those close games and then back it up the next day as well."

How well the group has come together

While Barr always had faith that a team put together by coach Morley would end up being a strong one in 2026, whenever there is a totally new group coming together you never quite know how it's going to click.

Then the Eagles did have to adjust to losing Jasmin Fejo to a knee injury after she made a brilliant start and then there was blending Sarah Mortensen in, and now the replacement for Fejo will be on board as of this Saturday night at home to the Perth Redbacks.

So there's naturally been some adjustments along the way, but the form really hasn’t fluctuated for East Perth and that first loss to Joondalup came just hours after the news came through about the season-ending knee injury to Fejo.

Then the second loss was to the Cockburn Cougars who had won 29 straight games but East Perth were on top of them for three quarters, so Barr likes how the team has clicked already and is pleasantly surprised it's happened so quickly.

"To bring a group of girls together that have never played together before even though a couple of us have played against each other so we did know a little bit about each other's games," Barr said.

"But I think Jonelle has done a wonderful job of bringing girls together that she thought were going to gel off the court. I think that always helps with the team chemistry and I think that's probably played a part in why we're doing so well early on in the season."

Playing with another MVP level player

While Barr has embraced playing with all her new teammates with the Eagles in 2026, it's having another MVP level player alongside her like Sarah Mortensen that is really something she is enjoying.

The two were on opposite teams in the Grand Final last year with Mortensen winning a second championship with the Cockburn Cougars while Barr did everything for Warwick to have a sniff against the odds with 35 points and 13 rebounds.

Mortensen made the All-NBL West First team for a second time and might have been unlucky not to be MVP, but Barr is just grateful to now be her teammates and helping form a lethal duo alongside her with the Eagles in 2026.

"It was really exciting when Jonelle told me that she was recruiting Sarah and playing against her for those couple of seasons, she's obviously a very dominant player in this league," Barr said.

"She's an amazing athlete and her work ethic is unmatched, and she's just always looking for ways to get better and improve as a player, and bring her teammates along with her with that. So it's been nice to play with her rather than against her that's for sure."

Playing against Warwick first two times

Barr might be only halfway through the season with the Eagles but she's already got two games against her former Senators team out of the way where she had spent the previous seven seasons and playing in three Grand Finals and winning the NBL1 West and National championships in 2022.

It wasn’t necessarily a strange feeling walking back into Warwick Stadium for that first encounter, but it was strange for her to play against some long-time teammates from her time with Warwick like Nat Burton, Chloe Forster and Mackenzie Clinch Hoycard.

While it was competitive on the court, that friendship remains off it but Barr certainly was happy to come away with the two wins.

"It really was weird and I walked back into Warwick quite often because I work around there so I'm used to going into the stadium, but being back out on the court and playing basketball against some of my closest friends was really strange," Barr said.

"But it was nice to get the win and be able to walk out of there with that, but it was a very unusual experience."