Senators, Flames look to repeat Nationals glory

Featured image: Michael Farnell @sportsimageryau

If you go back to 2022 and the Warwick Senators and Rockingham Flames were the respective NBL1 West champions and they repeated that on Saturday night at RAC Arena. Now the mission is to repeat what they did at the NBL1 National Finals a week later too.

The Senators women have won just the three championships in their SBL/NBL1 West history and the Flames men two, but they have now just happened to have done it in the same year for the second time in the past five years.

Warwick pulled off a picture perfect Grand Final performance last Saturday at RAC Arena to beat the defending champion Cockburn Cougars 102-76 and to win a second title in five years.

Rockingham then survived quite the chess match and dog fight with the defending champion Geraldton Buccaneers to prevail 66-62 to win their second men's championship in history.

Now both the Senators and Flames have qualified for the NBL1 National Finals in Adelaide starting on Friday just as they did in 2022.

And when they did in 2022, the Senators backed up their NBL1 West championship by beating the Ringwood Hawks in Melbourne to win the National Finals Championship Game.

Rockingham were then able to complete the double for NBL1 West teams by beating the hometown Frankston Blues who were on their own fairytale run while the Flames did it without their season and Grand Final MVP Devondrick Walker.

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The 2026 edition of the NBL1 National Finals will all take place at the State Basketball Centre in Adelaide and the Warwick Senators will be the first NBL1 West team in action at 6pm local time on Friday when they take on the NBL1 East champion Bankstown Bruins.

Going back to that 2022 triumphant team from the National Finals in Melbourne for Warwick, Chloe Forster, Mackenzie Clinch Hoycard and Nat Burton are the surviving players from that squad who were part of the stunning Grand Final performance against Cockburn last Saturday.

Burton pulled the curtains on her 268-game, five-time championship winning SBL/NBL1 West career in that win at RAC Arena and now will be looking to complete the fairytale farewell to her glittering career this weekend in Adelaide.

The Senators will arrive in Adelaide feeling on top of the world not only having just won the championship, but the sheer way they did against a Cockburn team that beat them in last year's Grand Final and had looked invincible at times the past two years.

Warwick's game plan worked a treat of using the Cougars' apparent strength of their big three trio Darcee Garbin, Daniel Raber and Jessie Edwards against them with their guard power of Grand Final MVP Forster and Jayda Clark shining.

Making it even more impressive of a coaching performance was that head coach Brad Robbins wasn’t there while in India with the Australian Emus, but he left his team in the more than capable hands of Paul Rogers.

Now the first up test in Adelaide for the Senators is a Bankstown Bruins team fresh off winning the NBL1 East championship back on Sunday on the Central Coast when they beat the defending champion Manly Warringah Sea Eagles 90-85.

That was on the back of the superstar back court of Grand Final MVP Shyla Heal along with Tahlia Tupaea who combined for 47 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists with 12/30 field goal shooting, 3/13 three-point shooting and 20/21 at the foul line.

There's also French import Margot De Freitas, the experienced Davida Dale and then an impressive core group of locals with co-captain Kiahna Davis-White, Shalome Dunlop, Kalia Proctor and Jane Dunlop the Senators will need to be mindful of.

Then it will be the turn of the Rockingham Flames to be in action from 8pm local time when they take on the Canberra Gunners from the NBL1 East.

That's a battle of Rockingham who won the 2022 National Finals up against the defending champion Gunners who scored a memorable triumph last year on their home floor in Canberra when they beat the Geraldton Buccaneers in front of a raucous crowd cheering them on.

It's the first time for Rockingham to be back at the National Finals since losing the Championship Game to the Knox Raiders at Arena Joondalup in 2023 as well.

The Flames booked their place with a tight and tense 66-62 Grand Final win in the NBL1 West at RAC Arena last Saturday night against the defending champion Buccaneers.

That was on the back of two-time league MVP Isaac White winning the Grand Final MVP with a supremely efficient performance despite the hounding defence of Verle Williams for 19 points, seven rebounds, three assists and two steals on 8/12 shooting.

Rockingham also did it without Michael Harris and with Tevin Jackson not returning after an earlier heavy collision, but the depth had been the great strength of the Flames all season.

Emmett Naar will now return to the National Finals after the starring role he played for the Mackay Meteors on the Sunshine Coast in 2024 having had eight points and eight assists in Rockingham's Grand Final win last Saturday night.

Then there's 374-game veteran Ryan Godfrey who won his second NBL1 West championship last week and now will look to repeat his heroics from 2022 when he was the Grand Final MVP in the Championship Game triumph for Rockingham against Frankston in Melbourne.

Travis Durnin also became a championship captain back on Saturday night and will be leading Rockingham into Adelaide alongside coach Ryan Petrik who has now won two championships each with the Flames women's and men's teams along with continued success in the WNBL at the Perth Lynx.

Tickets for the event are available now! Don't miss out on a huge weekend of NBL1 hoops! Click HERE to purchase yours today.

All National Finals games will be streamed LIVE & FREE via Kayo Freebies.