Wright thankful for trust Eagles have put in her

Featured image: Mark Filpo (@codexdesignstudio)

Sydney Wright has never had a coach put faith in her like NBL1 West Coach of the Year Jonelle Morley has and her move to join the East Perth Eagles is the best she's made and hopes it leads back to Adelaide for NBL1 National Finals.

Having already spent a season each in the NBL1 North at the Rockhampton Cyclones and Central at the Central Districts Lions following her time at college, Wright was ready to try something new again in 2026 and couldn’t be happier with what she's found with the Eagles.

It has been strong upward trajectory for the dynamic point guard since her time at Western New Mexico University going from 5.1 points and 1.1 assists in 16 minutes at Rockhampton to 12.5 points and 4.5 assists in 37 minutes in Duga, and then 14.4 points and 4.8 assists in 35 minutes with Centrals.

That trend has now continued with 14.9 points and 4.0 assists in 34 minutes now this season with East Perth as the starting point guard with coach Morley entrusting her to run the team full of superstars including Stacey Barr, Sarah Mortensen, Brooke Malone and Jade Williams.

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Wright is thankful to coach Morley for the faith she's put in her to run this East Perth team and for her teammates for backing her in to do the job too as the Eagles now prepare for Saturday night's qualifying final against the Rockingham Flames.

"It's helped me in a huge way and for one just having Jonelle trust me does a lot for a player's confidence," Wright said.

"I haven’t really had that too much in my playing career so far so for her to just back me and believe in me means a lot.

"As well as my teammates, that does a lot, and then it's just learning from our players. I'm surrounded by a lot of talented players and playing off them and making different reads from them, hearing their opinions on what we should do or shouldn’t do, it's just all knowledge.

"I can keep adding it to the bank so it's been huge for me and this whole year has been great."

How the 2026 team has come together

Wright was one of a host of new players to join East Perth for this 2026 season once Morley was appointed coach.

The chance to play under the 2022 National Finals championship winning coach was clearly a lure for not only Wright, but two-time MVP Stacey Barr, two-time champion Sarah Mortensen and the emerging Brooke Malone among others.

But still, for an entire new group from the coaching staff down to the majority of the players takes some doing, and the way the Eagles have come together is something that has been tremendous from all involved.

East Perth finished the regular season in third position with a 15-5 record to earn the finals double chance and Wright is proud of how the whole group has come together while at no point having everyone available starting with Jasmin Fejo suffering a season-ending knee injury the very same week Mortensen first arrived.

"I'm super proud and we've had a lot of adversity this year and despite what people might think, we've had a lot of injuries and we haven’t had one game all year with our full team," Wright said.

"And to put a bunch of girls that that have never played with each other before with a coach who has never coached of us before, and we've got girls from interstate and coming back from injuries.

"What we've achieved this year I think we're all really proud of but we have more that we want to achieve that we haven’t accomplished yet, but so far for us to have the year we've had, we're stoked and really excited."

Being part of Eagles growth

It hasn’t just been about how the women's team at the Eagles has come together, but the entire organisation is going places starting with the new facility at Morley Sport and Recreation Centre that only opened in 2024.

There's also been a successful rebrand, a greater connection with the local community and with both men's and women's teams making finals for a second straight year.

By finishing third, East Perth are guaranteed a home final too either on Thursday in a semi-final or next Saturday in a preliminary final with Wright looking forward that where the Eagles are 9-1 throughout 2026.

"It's awesome and it's always fun to be a part of a quote-unquote rebrand and the crowd we have is awesome, the fans are great and after games we have kids swarming up to us so it's really fun to see people excited to watch us play," Wright said.

"They do a great job of game day set up and it's always fun to shoot on your rims where we come and get shots up every day. So there's nothing more comfortable than coming and playing here."

Being impressed with the West

In the bigger picture, Wright has been impressed with how so much about the NBL1 West is a step up from what she experienced last year in the Central.

Whether that was Saturday night's glittering awards night at Crown Perth or the fact the Grand Final will be played at RAC Arena, the West is setting the standard for the country in a lot of ways with Wright happy to be seeing it from the inside.

"I would say so that everything is a little bit bigger over here in the West, as well as in the South to be honest and the North so they all have it going on without any disrespect to Central or the East," Wright said.

"Things are pretty big over here which is fun and I think it should be."

Chance for best month of career

While Wright isn’t looking past focusing on the challenge in Rockingham this Saturday against the Flames, she can't help but in the back of her mind think about how this next month could unfold.

There's the prospect of getting to play on RAC Arena and then should the Eagles go all the way, the reward would be Wright getting to return to Adelaide for the National Finals.

"It would be a nice little full circle moment and I would love for us to win here and then go back home to play against some friends, and old competitors and in front of some family as well," Wright said.

"I like our chances and I'd always be happy to go back and play some more games in Adelaide."