Posted
Updated
Ready for a rematch...Jessica Bibby. (supplied: Milbank Photography - Basketball Australia)
After 18 weeks and four finals, the moment that will decide the overall WNBL champion for 2009/10 has finally arrived.
The season premiers the Bulleen Boomers and reigning champions the Canberra Capitals are readying to fight it out for the ultimate bragging rights in a replay of last year's grand final.
Canberra triumphed over Bulleen by three points in last year's season decider in front of a vocal crowd at the AIS Arena.
It was the first grand final appearance for Bulleen and the team has undergone a noticeable makeover since then. The Boomers dominated the regular season, losing just one of its 22 games under the new coaching line up of Tom Maher, Michele Timms and Gary Fox.
The club has also made a number of key signings, including young gun Liz Cambage and Hanna Zavecz.
Head coach Maher also has tremendous depth at his disposal on the bench with Rachel Jarry, co-captain Desi Glaubitz and Kylie Reid.
The Canberra side is just as impressive. Aside from having the world's best player in Lauren Jackson at her disposal, coach Carrie Graf has a core group of players with a lot of big game experience.
The Opals coach has much of her national roster at her disposal, including Jackson, forwards Abby Bishop and Marianna Tolo and Natalie Hurst.
Captain Kellie Abrams and guards Jess Bibby and Chantella Perera will also make life difficult for Bulleen.
Both teams will head into the match having had the Sydney Uni Flames as their last opponent. While Bulleen and Canberra both recorded wins, they had vastly different experiences against the second placed side.
The Boomers met little resistance in their major semi-final against Sydney, and came away 72-55 winners at Knox Stadium.
Sydney made up for the poor performance however, and made the Capitals fight for every point in last week's 61-56 preliminary final win.
The grand final will re-write WNBL history no matter the result. This is Bulleen's second consecutive appearance in the biggest game of the year and they are hunting for their first championship in 27 seasons.
Canberra has the opportunity to make numerous additions to Basketball Australia's records. A win on Saturday will make the Capitals the most successful team in WNBL history, surpassing the Nunawading Spectres previous record of six titles.
Furthermore, only one team has even come from third place to win the championship. Unfortunately for the Boomers, it was the Lauren Jackson led side in 2005/06.
From the guards to the bigs, Saturday will showcase a number of great match ups across the board.
One of the most eagerly anticipated is the match-up between rising star Liz Cambage and the great Lauren Jackson.
The two have only met once before and Jackson more than had the upper hand over the young, but amazingly talented Cambage. While Bulleen won the round 18 encounter, the world champion Opal stacked on 40 points and 11 rebounds in the regular season finale.
Sparks will also fly in other areas of the court, with the battles between Elyse Penaluna and Abby bishop and Hanna Zavecz and Carly Wilson to have a massive impact on the outcome of the game.
Bullen has won both meetings between the clubs this season. The Boomers stormed home by 15 points grand final rematch in round one and backed up in round 18 with a 10 point victory.
Canberra is in front in the overall head-to-head statistics however, leading Bulleen 42 - 22.
All the action from the Grand Final between the Bulleen Boomers and the Canberra Capitals will be televised live and exclusively on ABC1 and ABC HD Channel 20 on Saturday March 6 from 1:00pm AEDST.
Bulleen Boomers: 4 Sharin Milner 6 Desiree Gluabitz 8 Liz Cambage 9 Kylie Reid 10 Lauren Jeffers 11 Jenna O'Hea 12 Rachel Jarry 15 Lauren Pearce 21 Elyse Penaluna 22 Lisa Pardon 33 Hanna Zavecz 41 Anna Crosswhite
Canberra Capitals: 5 Chantella Perrera 7 Natalie Hurst 8 Carly Wilson 9 Nicole Romeo 10 Abby Bishop 11 Jessica Bibby 12 Marianna Tolo 13 Kellie Abrams 14 Katie Rose 15 Lauren Jackson 21 Hannah Bowley 25 Tracey Beatty
This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.
AEDT = Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time which is 11 hours ahead of UTC (Greenwich Mean Time)
