Tyrone Thwaites and Alex Ciabattoni have each experienced championship glory, but they hope to get it together on Saturday at RAC Arena with both fully aware it will take the Cockburn Cougars’ best against the Rockingham Flames.
Thwaites wrote his name into the history books last year by becoming the first ever person to coach the Cougars to a women’s NBL1 West championship, and now he’s trying to repeat the dose on Saturday at RAC Arena against Rockingham.
Ciabattoni is playing her first season with the Cougars, but has a rich career history behind her which included winning the last ever SBL championship with Rockingham back in 2019 along with being part of two Perth Lynx teams that reached WNBL Grand Finals.
The Cougars have now booked their place in the first ever NBL1 West Grand Final this Saturday at RAC Arena where they will face off against Rockingham to determine the 2024 championship – and book in a spot at the National Finals on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.
COACH TYRONE THWAITES
Cougars coach Tyrone Thwaites learned a lot from last year having reached the Grand Final for the first time, and won the championship, and he is sure his players did as well, but he knows it will take more than doing the same thing to get the same result.
That has been the message all season long as the defending champions is that they have to keep improving and evolving as a group, and it doesn’t change heading into the Grand Final.
“Our message all year has been the same mindset won’t necessarily get the same results,” Thwaites said.
“We’d need to make little gains in all areas and I think what’s important is that our experience can allow us to ride emotional rollercoaster a little less.
“I think that’s probably the key and if you can start level, and there’ll be some nervous excitement as part of all of it, but if you can channel that into how you start the game at the defensive end, it really sets the tone for the game.
“We did that last year and I think it’s really about trying to keep the group level and making sure that a level of confidence and nervous energy is converted into a really solid start out on the floor.”
Thwaites always knew that this season would have some unique challenges as the defending champions because no longer were they the plucky underdogs who had never won. All of a sudden they became the ones with the targets on their back.
However, the focus more was on having the team clicking at its best at the right time of the year. Once Alex Ciabbatoni and Steph Gorman settled after their WNBL commitments, and Daniel Raber and Maria Blazejewski arrived, that certainly happened.
Cockburn went on to win eight of the last nine games of the regular season and then the two finals against the Warwick Senators and Perry Lakes Hawks, with those past 10 victories coming at an average of 27 points.
At the same time, Thwaites is happy with the way the Cougars have been tested ahead of the Grand Final given nine of the last 11 games have all been against teams who reached the finals.
“I think we have been tested and I think the final margins might just not really reflect that. What we have been able to do well is finish off games strongly and something we’ve had to get our handle on is our starts,” Thwaites said.
“We think we nailed that last weekend in the prelim, but certainly in the last regular season game Perry Lakes hit the front midway through the third and Warwick in that first final were up 10 at a point during the second quarter.
“So in terms of being tested, it’s certainly been there and has existed as was the back third of the season. Willetton were not an easy match up for us, neither were Perry Lakes, and we had to beat Lakeside at Lakeside.
“So while the margins kind of suggest somewhere between 10 and 30, none of those were truly comfortable and we had to work for them.
“We do feel like we’re in good game form at the moment because across the back half of the season we’ve only played two teams not inside the top eight so we’ve really had to play basketball, which has been reflected on the scoreboard and we take a lot of confidence knowing we’re playing our best basketball at the right time.”
STAR GUARD ALEX CIABATTONI
What Alex Ciabattoni has done now over the past 12 months as a mother is nothing short of remarkable and she is excited now to be in a Grand Final in her first season with the Cougars.
When Ciabattoni gave birth to son, Elijah, in January last year she had no idea if she would be able to play at NBL1 level again let alone the WNBL, but you could make a strong case that she’s playing some of the best basketball of her life.
Ciabattoni ended up being a key player on the Perth Lynx team that made it to another Grand Final in the 2023/24 WNBL season, and then joined up with the defending champion Cougars for the 2024 NBL1 West season.
Getting to play alongside Jewel Williams once again after previously doing so at the Eastern Suns and then continuing her back court partnership with Steph Gorman from the Lynx was a big part of the lure for Ciabattoni.
So was the prospect of trying to help Cockburn win back-to-back championships and now Ciabattoni can’t help but be feeling excited for Saturday in her first chance to play at RAC Arena.
“It was one of the reasons I signed up was to have that chance to be part of a competitive team and hopefully compete for another championship,” Ciabattoni said.
“It’s definitely exciting now to get back to this point and even though I have been to a few Grand Finals recently, you still always get a bit nervous. It’s exciting, though, and our whole team has been preparing for this all year and it’s been our goal from the start.
“So to be able to achieve that and make the Grand Final is huge for us and it’s been a big motivator through all the training, extra sessions and everything we’ve done.”
What Ciabattoni has seen over the course of the season is the constant improvement the Cougars have made.
She has been a huge part of that and that’s why she was named to the All First Team on the back of delivering 20.4 points, 5.7 rebounds and 5.3 assists a game.
Co-captains Williams and Gorman shared the back court with her and had standout seasons as well while what Israeli centre Daniel Raber has brought to the group is remarkable with 18.6 points, 10.6 rebounds and 4.9 assists a game.
It was somewhat baffling she was snubbed on awards night, but none of that matters now and all Ciabattoni is worrying about is the Cougars keeping their hot form going for one more game.
“I definitely think we’ve been building and i feel like we are peaking at the right time,” she said.
“It’s always hard with these seasons where everyone is coming in at different times, and it can take some time for your team to gel. So you try to make sure that when you get to the end of the season that’s when everything is falling into place.
“Obviously you never want to lose games early either, but I feel like every game we lost we learnt from which is all you can ask for. It’s definitely given us that bit more motivation and desire to come out and win in this second half of the season to show what we can do.”
Ciabattoni won a championship back in 2019 at the Flames as well, but considering how quickly players can turn over in this competition, there is scarcely a former teammate left there for her to play against.
However, there are still plenty of players she does know well whether it was at the Lynx like Emma Gandini, Robbi Ryan and Alex Sharp, or long-time foes in this league like Shani Amos, Nes’eya Parker-Williams and Jess Jakens.
While it doesn’t necessarily feel like she’s playing a former team in the Grand Final, there are those outside the playing group she has a soft spot for with Rockingham.
“It is a weird feeling. It feels like I’m playing my former club because I was there for a while and I worked at the club, and meant a lot of great people there and obviously won a championship,” Ciabattoni said.
“But as far as that relationship or connection goes with the team, I honestly don’t really have one. There’s only one girl there, Chloe (Napolitano), who was part of the squad when I was there and everyone else is new.”
