Ryan Petrik - Perth Lynx Coach (14.10.2026)

Mark Duffield (0:00)

Welcome back to the SNWA studio out here at Optus Stadium. 23.7 degrees, building to a hot one in our fair city today. A top of 32 later in the day, before the chance of showers, which doesn't look likely at the moment, but that's what the forecast says. It is Perth Lynx Membership Day today, thanks to IMA. Perth Lynx fans, you can get three games for $33, that is today only. As I said, thanks to IMA. Visit perthlynx.wnbl.com.au.

The coach, Ryan Petrik, joins me on the show now, ahead of a big first up clash with Townsville Saturday afternoon at the Perth High Performance Centre. Ryan, welcome.

Ryan Petrik (0:49)

Thanks for having me, guys. Appreciate it.

Mark Duffield (0:51)

So mate, Townsville first up, they've become your very fierce rivals. What do you expect when you come up against them?

Ryan Petrik (1:01)

Yeah, they're elite. They're very, very good for a reason. They're the defending champs for a reason.

From memory, I think they're the only team that's won more games of basketball than what we have in the last six years. And they've got two championships to show for it, and we've got zero. So we certainly owe them a couple. But yeah, they're elite and they'll be switched on from day one.

Mark Duffield (1:22)

How do you recover after you've come so close a couple of times and not got the chocolates? How do you regroup and make sure you aren't scarred by that?

Ryan Petrik (1:33)

Kind of like we've alluded to a couple of times.

Success courts failure. You're going to be chasing grand finals and championship victories and stuff. Obviously, if you're going to get close to something, you might not quite make it. So that's part of it. And you can sit around and drive at it and woe is me, or you can get on with it. And clearly we've chosen just to get on with it.

Mark Duffield (1:55)

So obviously, the most significant change, the loss of Harn Joo to Geelong, how do you cover for that and what changes will we see in the way you play because of that?

Ryan Petrik (2:06)

Well, it's the only change and obviously Harn Joo is a leak. But obviously we've got a very, very confident five in Tionni Keys to replace her.

And we will be gone Tionni from very early in free agency. Could we partner alongside Harn or if we lose Harn, do we have her exclusively? And obviously that's the way it's played out there is the latter. The Tionni Keys is an elite five man.

She can guard the rim, she can run, she can play clearly without Harn. It will tweak our defense, obviously, in elite rim protector, but just the visual deterrent of guards turning the corner and seeing Harn in the rim and just kind of a boarding mission like you kind of see teams do in the NBA with Victor when we're in armour. So, yeah, obviously different, but Tionni is also elite. And obviously without Harn, it means we can probably increase our pace and play even faster than previous years.

Mark Duffield (2:59)

Is it right that you'll start the season without having chosen a captain, mainly because of the delay in getting Anneli Mailey back? Obviously she should be playing for the New York Liberty in the WNBA and might have a delayed start to the season.

Ryan Petrik (3:16)

Yeah, it's something we're still working through, clearly not ideal, but it doesn't matter. Like we're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. She's either been our captain or our co-captain the last two or three seasons, whatever the exact number is. She's an elite leader, and she's the only player we haven't actually seen in the flesh. So clearly she'll make up some component of our leadership group, whether that's captain or what have you.

But yeah, obviously having our captaincy vote and trying to sort through your leadership group is difficult when your most natural leader hasn't actually been with the group just yet. So it's something we'll discuss and work through in the coming days. But yeah, there's a world where obviously we haven't got our captain, certainly not quite all our leader from last year and only mainly playing for us this weekend, let alone what the captaincy situation is.

Mark Duffield (4:06)

So when do you expect her to be back and available and playing?

Ryan Petrik (4:11)

We'd be probably hoping for next weekend. But yeah, right now, we've kind of had an idea when they got, when New York got through round one that there was a real world where we wouldn't get her in time for game one of our season, which is perfectly fine.