Mathews, Sabres take direction from the past

Featured image: Dan Cowley | @imagesby_dan

The Sturt Sabres have been agonisingly close of an NBL1 Central championship ever since Nicola Mathews returned from college but rather than carrying those scars or taking added motivation, the captain just feels it provides direction when in those situations again.

After her time at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, Mathews returned to Sturt and ever since the Sabres have been genuine contenders in the NBL1 Central making Grand Finals in 2022, 2023 and 2025, and a preliminary final in 2024.

They have never finished a regular season lower than second and that trend has continued this year where they ended up second at 14-4 before beating the Norwood Flames in a qualifying final and then losing to the West Adelaide Bearcats in last week's second semi-final.

The Sabres now have a chance to reach another Grand Final this Saturday night when they host the Flames at Springbank Secondary College with Mathews having put together a strong season in 2026 with 12.2 points, 4.7 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 1.8 steals a game.

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While it might be easy for people from the outside to assume that the Sabres carry some scars from the Grand Final losses in 2022 to West Adelaide, 2023 to Norwood or 2025 to Woodville, or maybe that serves as their big motivation now, Mathews doesn't feel that's the case.

Instead, she feels as though it gives them good direction and an understanding of what it takes in those situations again and for them to know what to do should they get there again.

"A lot of people ask about this and yes, the losses obviously suck to get all the way to the Grand Final and lose and I guess there is some sort of motivation taken from that," Mathews said.

"But I think it's more direction taken from that and we're learning a lot from those losses to come back each year really thinking about what went wrong and how we can fix that.

"I think those losses in finals situations gives us more direction than motivation if that kinda makes sense.

"We don't need any added motivation, we're a competitive group already and want to win and do it for each and ourselves and for the whole club. But what it does is give us lessons to learn from and we can take direction from those past seasons."

Feeling coming into preliminary final

Sturt started the 2026 season on fire winning the opening seven matches before back-to-back losses to West Adelaide and Norwood – who just happen to be the only other two teams still alive.

The Sabres then won seven of the last nine games of the regular season but again the two losses they did suffer were against the Flames and Bearcats.

They then beat Norwood in a home qualifying final before falling to West Adelaide in last Saturday night's second semi-final with Mathews now looking forward to the chance that presents at home this weekend to book in another Grand Final appearance by beating the Flames.

"We talked about this as a group after the game on Saturday and even coming up for all these games knowing we had a home final first, and we earned that, and we should have so much confidence in how our season has gone in general and how we've improved and rebounded after certain losses," Mathews said.

"Coming into the game now on Saturday, we're really excited because it's a home game and we've earnt that, and we're excited to improve from the last game just on Saturday.

"We do reviews every Monday after games and being able to talk about that loss and then reflecting back on the Saturday night before that, we do that really well as a group.

"So we're really excited to play this Saturday just because of the rebound and all of that kinda stuff, and knowing it's a lose and you're done game, there's more stakes now and we can't review this game if we lose.

"So we have to come out and play like it could be the last time we play together this year and we're really excited for it."

Getting a second chance at home

While the Sabres never thought about wanting to use their second chance, the benefit of having such a strong regular season is that the reality was should they have a slip up in the first two weeks of the finals, they would have another chance.

That's now how things have turned out and Mathews is glad to get to play this Saturday night's preliminary final on their home floor.

"Even though we did earn the second chance, we didn’t go into any games wanting to rely on that and we wanted to win on Saturday obviously to get through," Mathews said.

"We didn’t want to use the excuse of having a second chance if things weren’t going our way and we have lots of confidence still for this week just from the environment.

"Having a home final and being able to play in front of all the Sturt people is great and gives us an extra boost."

Being confident of another shot at West

Given Sturt have already lost to Norwood twice this season and they do have the Lorraine Eiler Medallist Cali Clark, there's no one at the Sabres who are looking past them for a potential rematch with West Adelaide in a Grand Final.

Whoever makes the Grand Final out of the Sabres and Flames will have played three straight tough finals matches heading into the decider at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre while the Bearcats will have played just once in that time.

Whether that has any sort of impact or not either way only time will tell, but it's the last thing on Mathews' mind right now.

"I think we would feel good about our chances no matter the situation and I'm sure West will have something organised themselves for Saturday to keep themselves ready," Mathews said.

"Our core group has been in their position before of having that week off and we tried to keep the consistent routine and I can't imagine they wouldn’t have a similar idea so I don't think it will make any sort of difference once you get to a Grand Final.

"It just comes down to the game but we're not even thinking about that yet and are only worried about this Saturday night and all our focus is on Norwood as it should be. We've both played the same amount of games coming into this week and that's all we're worried about."

Being a leader and the team getting better

Mathews is enjoying her role as captain on this Sturt team and getting to lead alongside the likes of Zoe Walker-Roberts and Meg Prosser along with having Youth Player of the Year and Coaches MVP Tayla Brazel in the line-up.

She is the second leading scorer on the team only behind Brazel who also was named to the All-Star Five and above everything else, what Mathews is doing is enjoying her basketball and being part of this Sturt team of 2026 as much as she ever has.

While that continues to be the case, she can't see any reason why she won't keep playing and representing Sturt with such pride.

"I always have fun playing with this team and I think this team is really easy to improve with," Mathews said.

"We learn off each other as well and there are certain things that individuals in our team do well and we talk about that, and everyone tries to learn off each other in that way.

"I also get lots of confidence from them telling me that you should take that shot or could do this better or whatever it might be. As a group we're really good at kind of doing that kinda thing.

"But in terms of leading, me Zoe and Meg, I feel like we are respected so that respect from teammates makes it easier to lead altogether and I've just had fun this year. That's the main thing for me and I feel like we've all improved so much even just game to game.

"We had a b it of a rough patch in the middle of the season and I think having the same core group for a long time means it might be easy to become complacent, but that hasn’t happened with us and we've done a good job of getting better.

"The time I'm not happy is when I stop playing so that's a big reflection on the environment that I'm in where I'm having so much fun."

Having a sister now in Queensland

When Mathews initially returned from college to play in the NBL1 with Sturt, it was her first chance to play with older sister Kayla which they were able to continue to do up until the 2024 preliminary final loss to the Forestville Eagles.

But now the past two seasons and Kayla has played in the NBL1 North with the Sunshine Coast Phoenix and while Nicola might be resigned to having lost her sister to the Queensland sun, she's happy to see her life and basketball both thriving.

"It's funny isn’t it, you go so long not getting to play with her in juniors because she was a little bit older and then I come back and you get so used to playing together all of a sudden," Mathews said.

"You get to play with someone who knows your temperament so well and the things I need in terms of confidence or not being afraid to tell me things that other people might be a little more hesitant to tell.

"It's the same the other way and I feel comfortable with her to help her out and we know each other so well.

"So not having her was a little bit of an adjustment last year, but at the same time seeing her up in Queensland doing her thing and having all these other experiences, and seeing her have fun and be happy, that's been really nice to see as well. And I hope she says the same about watching us."

How much does Sturt mean to you

Given Mathews started representing Sturt when she was just 17 back in 2015 and was part of the squad up until leaving for college for that 2017/18 season, and now she has returned since and wouldn’t ever play anywhere else, it's fair to say the Sabres mean a lot to her.

She might ride the rollercoaster a bit too much at times than she'd care to admit, but it's for all the people involved from her teammates to the coaches to the staff and volunteers that mean that she can't help but be so invested.

"It means a little bit too much I think at times and I have too many feelings towards the club," Mathews said.

"When we do well, I can be the happiest person in the world and then I probably get a bit too sad when we don’t. But that's probably more because it's fed so much into my juniors and growing up I had so much to do with the club and they gave me so many good experiences.

"I got to go away with teammates and my development with basketball here led to me going away to college so they did so much for me just with life and not even just basketball.

"So many life experiences came from Sturt and then I think there's a lot of pride in the fact that lots of us in our team now are Sturt juniors and I probably care a little bit too much and wish I didn’t care so much about Sturt.

"But there's pros and cons with that and there's nothing better than winning with all the girls who grew up in the system and are playing for our coach Shortty who has been around the club forever too.

"There's all these other people around the club that have been Sturt for so long and care about the club so much and the history so it's something that makes it so good playing for our group now."