Proud Filpo looks for Eagles to grab chance

Featured image: Mark Filpo (@codexdesignstudio)

East Perth Eagles coach Carl Filpo is rightfully proud his team has made the NBL1 West finals for a third straight year and he feels they have been tidying up things at just the right time to now make the most of the chance ahead.

Going back three years and there had been some lean years for the Eagles since the 2014 championship, but Filpo took over as a coach with a clear vision to build something and to set East Perth up to have the ability of sustained success.

The growth has been evident ever since with the Eagles going from winning just four games in 2022 to seventh in 2023 to not be too far off a return to finals action.

They then broke through to return to the playoffs in 2024 with a 13-9 recording before it was their old foes the Rockingham Flames who beat them for a 17th straight time to end their season in an elimination final.

The Eagles then backed up to make the finals again in 2025 from eighth position and then hit the road in an elimination final to beat the Joondalup Wolves at Arena Joondalup for what was a first finals victory since the 2014 Grand Final.

It was again Rockingham who ended their season in the semi finals following that but now the Eagles have been able to book in a finals spot again in 2026 to finish in eighth position at 10-12.

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The challenge that now awaits the Eagles is an elimination final on the road once more against the Willetton Tigers on Saturday night, but before that, Filpo deservedly had the chance to reflect on the pride he has in the leaps forward East Perth have made over the last four years.

"I'm hugely proud and I've been coming to games even as a kid here to watch East Perth and I did that for so many years where there wasn’t always a lot of wins," Filpo said.

"Even now to have JT here on our coaching staff who won that championship but had been around through the tough years before that, but I've got real East People with me.

"Even on our team, we have a lot of East Perth juniors and guys who play for the jersey and all that comes into it as well as the experience.

"So I'm hugely proud and really happy that we've been able to pull it off three years in a row and there's only upside from here I think."

Taking positives from last two weeks

It has been a rollercoaster ride all season in 2026 for the Eagles with them starting off winning five of the first seven games before then going on a run of losing eight of the next 10.

They were able to stop that slide with three straight victories against the South West Slammers, Lakeside Lightning and Perth Redbacks before then losing to top four teams the Geraldton Buccaneers and Cockburn Cougars in the last fortnight.

But what Filpo was looking for out of those two games to finish against the Buccs and Cougars was the chance to get themselves ready to play finals by tidying some areas that had been letting them down.

A lot of that was cleaning up the turnovers and trying to limit the offensive rebounds from the opposition, and while it's still a work in progress, he did see encouraging signs.

"There were things that we went into the game with that we wanted to see because it was a dead rubber and we were still trying to win of course, but the priority was to see certain things," Filpo said.

"We wanted to see certain guys out on the floor, certain combinations and certain aspects and adjustments that we made. So we were happy with the second half for sure.

"We talked before the game about how the Cougars are the best team in the country for forcing turnovers and what better test than running our stuff against their stuff to see if we could take better care of the ball. We pulled it off quite well so I was really happy with that."

Trying to even up the possession game

Losing the possession game is never a recipe for success and if the opposition is getting up more shots from you on a regular basis, it just puts so much extra pressure on your defence to try to force them into tough shots, and then your offence to extra efficient.

The key reasons the Eagles have been losing the possession battles is the turnovers they've been coughing up and offensive rebounds conceded, but Filpo does feel like things are trending in the right direction on both fronts.

"The adjustment we made at half-time shows us that we've got some mental toughness and resilience," Filpo said.

"Even being down what we were going into the fourth quarter, to be able to come back and Mark (Clayden) called a timeout with a few seconds to go because the game was on the line and we did get the deflection off that, but just didn’t come up with it.

"Everything worked up to that point as far as that went but those adjustments were made, we were happy with what we saw and that things are heading in the right direction."

Finding an offensive groove

Scoring had been a struggle at times throughout the season for the Eagles at different stages, but now coming into the finals and they have put up 100-plus points in three of the last five matches.

They had only scored over 100 points three times in total up to that stage so now Filpo also likes that things are starting to click a little more at the offensive end for the Eagles as well.

"The ball's moving and really, it comes back to turnovers and if you look at the pattern of turnovers, when we have high turnovers we have low scores," Filpo said.

"In games with low turnovers, we have high scores, and although we lost to the Cougars, we had low turnovers and we scored 104. Those 100-point games are in us as long as we look after the ball."

Having a team built for teams

It's an Eagles team with plenty of experienced players and those used to playing on a big stage with Jonah Antonio likely back from winning a silver medal with the Australian Gangurrus at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Then there's Lat Mayen and David Okwera who both played in NBL26 while De'Sean Parsons, Lee Roberts, Ioannis Dimakopoulos and Jermaine Malie provide plenty of experience, and Nick Filpo, Kai Kabugua and Bing Huang are important in the back court.

Filpo as a result likes that this is the group he'll go to battle with in the finals.

"We do feel like we're made for this time of year and the opportunity's there for us," Filpo said.

"There's De'Sean as well and Jermaine who has won a championship so those type of guys can definitely make a difference.

"The opportunity is definitely there for us, it's about showing up on the night and actually proving that and I do believe that they can do it."