Timing perfect for Eagles to reset themselves

Featured image: Mark Filpo (@codexdesignstudio)

The results might have suggested the East Perth Eagles were playing well before last week's break but coach Jonelle Morley saw that as the chance to gets things in order before what they now hope is a big finish to NBL1 West season potentially over the next month.

The Eagles did still win five of their last six games before having the week off last weekend when the men's team was up in Geraldton, but Coach of the Year nominee Morley saw plenty of things she wanted to work on with her team.

East Perth do remain in third position with a 14-5 record now with one game of the regular season remaining where they play host to the top-of-the-table defending champion Cockburn Cougars on Friday night at Morley Sport and Recreation Centre.

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The Eagles had won five straight games until falling in a tight one to the Perth Redbacks at Belmont Oasis going into the week off but for Morley what it did was further highlight some things to work on.

Sometimes winning can gloss over things, but that loss might end up being a blessing in disguise in terms of highlighting where the Eagles can improve even if it does make it look like a second place finish is out of reach.

Morley is looking forward to how the group now comes out of a chance to freshen up a little and tidy up some areas ahead of facing the Cougars and then attacking the finals.

"We see this is as sort of our pre-season into finals and it is a good opportunity for that mental and physical reset for a couple of the girls who probably need that right now at this time of the season," Morley said.

"But for us also, it's a really good opportunity to reflect and you might win some games and maybe not notice stuff, but a loss also points out some of those things we really need to work on.

"We found some key areas that we need to continue to work on as a team over the next couple of weeks so that we're ready to play our best basketball as we come into the last week of the season and first couple of weeks of finals."

Learning some tough lessons

Coming off five wins by an average margin of 22 points, it was a tough loss to the Redbacks two weeks ago for the Eagles but they still did put themselves in with a chance before a big three for the home team from Olivia Berry in the dying seconds.

It did lead to a couple of sleepless nights afterwards for Morley before she started to take stock and learned the lessons the Eagles can take out of it.

"It probably wasn’t so much that last shot, but probably the entirety of how we played the last couple of weeks and we probably got away with a couple of wins when we potentially hadn’t played our best basketball," Morley said.

"But in a good way we managed to win a couple of those and then obviously Redbacks came to play and finals were on the line for them and they threw everything at us.

"We started poorly and we came back, which was good and we didn’t fall over and were able to push back, but their shots dropped and ours absolutely didn’t.

"I mean Stacey was hitting most things, but the rest of the squad struggled a little bit in that department and that hurt us in the end."

Taking stock of season so far

Considering Morley is new to coaching at the Eagles and the majority of the playing squad are all new as well and playing together for the first time, to be in the position they are with one game to go is still something to be proud of.

Having said that, Morley is a championship coach and this is the time of the year that she has been getting her team ready for and having a week off to get ready for what could be two weeks of finals, a Grand Final and even a trip to Adelaide for the National Finals was ideal.

"We would have definitely loved to finish second and that's looking like it will be tough now and if I'm being honest, we potentially thought it could come down to head-to-head between us and Rockingham, and we beat them by nine but they beat us by 12," Morley said.

"So the reality of it is that it was probably going to come down to that anyway, but regardless we have stayed ahead of Warwick in regards to that third or fourth or finish but there's still a bit to play out.

"We're definitely building for finals right now and our last game of the season is essentially the start of our finals run and we want to come into that with that mindset."

Just focusing on Eagles for now

While the Eagles have a clash with the Cougars this Friday night and there's every chance it will be Rockingham they are playing to start the finals, Morley's focus remains on getting things right amongst themselves for now.

"Right now our focus is on us and what we need to adapt as a team to play our best basketball. By doing that I think we can bring our game to beat any team that stands in front of us," Morley said.

"Yes, that might be Cockburn in the last round, it might be Rockingham in the first round of finals, but it could be any team potentially after that.

"I think for us if we concentrate on the style of basketball we want to play and that we set ourselves at the beginning of the season, and how we want to be seen as a team, then that puts us in good stead to get over any team that stands in front of us moving forward."

Health update on the squad

At no point all season has Morley seen her full vision of the team at the Eagles out on the court because early on Jasmin Fejo had a standout first three games but then injured her knee on the very same training night that Sarah Mortensen first arrived.

Then since then McKenna Dale arrived as her replacement but injured her own knee in her first appearance while Jo Odude and Jaymie Symons have also spent some time sidelined.

Morley is still no clearer on the outlook for Dale but is happy with how the rest of the squad is now placed to tackle the business end of the season.

"We've said the whole time along that we won't know what's happening with McKenna until the day that it happens and to be honest we're still in that position," Morley said.

"We're hopeful for her and she wants to play some basketball, but the reality of it is that we will have to wait and see how the next couple of weeks plays out.

"She is borderline whether or not she will get up for a game or not and that's on a day-to-day basis that we have to reassess that.

"And we've still got girls coming back and strengthening, Jo's still finding her strength again in her game and Jaymie had a little bit of health stuff going on and she's still building as well.

"There's a lot of girls that probably needed a little bit of a rest this week and I told the girls to enjoy the weekend how they want to do that.

"For some girls that haven’t been here they might like to explore Western Australia, some of them are heading away and some of them are spending time with family.

"It's a great opportunity to reset but then we're going to come out stronger than ever ready to go against Cockburn."