Ryan Petrik - Perth Lynx Coach (03.06.2026)

**Mark Duffield** (0:00)
Welcome back to the SENWA studio out here at Uptor Stadium on this Wednesday morning in Perth. It is 12.7 degrees outside at the moment. It's a tad chilly, building to a top of 18 degrees later in the day. Ryan Petrik has had the Perth Lynx in title contention regularly in recent seasons. He's just inked a fresh multi-year contract with the Lynx, and he joins us on the show now. Ryan, welcome.

**Ryan Petrik** (0:28)
Mark, thanks for having me, mate.

**Mark Duffield** (0:30)
It's a pleasure to have you on, mate. Congratulations on the new contract. Tell us about your thought process as you recommitted.

**Ryan Petrik** (0:39)
Pretty simple one, to be honest. Love the club, love the direction it's heading in.
Since SCN has taken over, it's kind of gone from strength to strength. We've become a bit of a destination club the last three or four years, and we've done everything to win the final game of the year. So kind of a bit of unfinished business.

**Mark Duffield** (0:59)
There is unfinished business. I guess that was going to be my next question. You've basically been to the Big Dance a few times, haven't quite gotten it done. This is the one challenge ahead of you, isn't it really?

**Ryan Petrik** (1:12)
Yeah, it's the one thing left.
So we've had dominant regular seasons. But yeah, every time we get to the finals, unfortunately, we're in this mob called the Townsville Fire, who have had our number, unfortunately. So we've got to find a way to get past that final roadblock.

**Mark Duffield** (1:28)
And sometimes when you're there that often and you can't come back with the title, there's a bit of scar tissue. How do you guard against that as you prepare for the next season?

**Ryan Petrik** (1:41)
Well, we're never going to be complacent because we haven't won the thing yet. And in terms of scar tissue, I guess we're fortunate in the fact that in the WNBL, there's a fair bit of roster change.
So we generally, in most clubs, are the same. Lose four or five players each off-season, so you kind of come back with a fairly new team.
So maybe from a coaching point of view, there's scar tissue. But certainly from the players' point of view, there's only a few of them left from the very start. So Mali's played in two of those three grand finals, Chibba's played in three of those grand finals. I've been in three of them. The rest of the squad's pretty neutral to it. So we don't think that should have too big an effect.

**Mark Duffield** (2:22)
Amy Atwell and Allie Wilson leave the club, obviously, after last season. How do you replace them?

**Ryan Petrik** (2:30)
Yeah, well, we brought in Sammy Whitcomb, who I think everyone in the country knows, and Niall Locke, who's a girl we really, really, really rate. And they've had our eye on for a while. So again, we'd love to thank everyone. Allie and Amy were both really great loyal servants of our club. And we thank them for their time. We wish them nothing but the best going forward.
But in life, obviously, things change. And the opportunity to bring in both Niall and Sammy into our program was too hard to say no to.

**Mark Duffield** (3:00)
Hans, you obviously was a star attraction for you last season. What's the status of her in terms of a possible return to Perth?

**Ryan Petrik** (3:09)
You're still in an ongoing dialogue with, clearly both parties have some interest in trying to reunite. It's just whereabouts in the world is going to be at the time and what her schedule looks like. But certainly we would have major interest in trying to bring her back.
And they're currently still in dialogue with.

**Mark Duffield** (3:25)
Now, obviously, are you chasing sort of position-specific places on the roster now? Ryan, what do you need to fill, do you think, with the departures you've had?

**Ryan Petrik** (3:39)
So, we probably want to again try to rebuild the roster a little bit with Tansil in mind because they've been the team that's knocked us out, I think, through the last four years.
So, trying to make some adjustments knowing what their roster looks like already. They had a lot of their team already resigned before the season even finished. So we kind of wanted to add a bit more defense and a bit more primitive defense to our roster and then also get a little bit bigger in other positions to try and match up on Tansil. So, that's kind of where we've been ahead of late.

**Mark Duffield** (4:12)