Hi everyone,

As we head into the final week of the tournament season, I want to update you on a few important matters and outline our plans as we move into the Winter Season.

Season Challenges & Venue Availability

This season has certainly tested our flexibility. With a new Competition Manager at South West Metro and Runcorn State High School being unavailable, we’ve had to adapt quickly. My home currently looks like a warehouse because everything had to be stored somewhere!

Because Runcorn was unavailable, we’ve had to restructure training—sometimes placing three teams on a single court and bringing in additional professional coaches to support them. We know some families have been disappointed, and we understand those concerns. Based on feedback, and to ensure training quality remains high, we will be reducing the number of teams for the Winter Season. We will still have 80 teams in the Winter season but this will be a decrease of over 100 players.

It’s important to remember that no basketball club—including South West Metro—owns its venues. All facilities are hired, and when they are unavailable, we do our best to adapt. This season we invested significantly in professional coaching support, even though none of your fees cover professional coaches, and our fees remain among the lowest in the association.

Nissan has advised they will not be renewing our contract for U8 and U10 training (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) and will be reducing some court availability for Term 2 for other age groups. Runcorn State High School has also confirmed their courts will not be available until 29 May. Once they reopen, we will return—likely around five weeks into the season.

Winter Season – Expression of Interest

To avoid exceeding our capacity and to ensure we can properly support each team, we will be moving to an Expression of Interest (EOI) process for Winter. Many other clubs already use this approach.

In previous seasons we accepted everyone and tried to make it work, but based on feedback this season, it seems members prefer a more structured approach.

We aim to release the EOI form mid week (25 March).

How it will work:

• Families submit an EOI.

• We confirm whether we have a suitable team available.

• If we have space in those teams we will send a registration link to you

• We will try to keep players in their existing teams where possible.

• If a team is no longer available, we will place players in a similar division and then send the registration link.

Teams for the Winter Season

Most teams will remain largely the same. However:

• If your team won most games, you may be moved to a higher division or have some adjustments made.

• If your team lost most games, we may move you to a lower division or adjust the team to strengthen it.

Our aim is for all teams to win at least 50% of their games, giving everyone a fair chance at finals. We believe strongly in the philosophy that sport—like life—includes both wins and losses.

U18 Queensland Selections

A huge congratulations to Coach Mack Utai, who has been nominated as one of the selectors for the U18 Queensland team. A fantastic achievement!