Geraldton Buccaneers
Statement
Hon Rob Horstman (5:34 pm): I rise this evening to share some good news from the Mid West on the sporting front. On 23 August, the Geraldton Buccaneers were successful in claiming the NBL1 West championship. The NBL1 is one of Australia's semi-professional sporting leagues, with both men's and women's teams all over country and city metropolitan Australia, and they compete in five different leagues around the country. The Buccaneers took out the men's championship in a nailbiting 81–78 victory, playing against the Warwick Senators at the RAC Arena in front of 6,100 fans, with 700 of them making the 430 kilometre trip down to Perth to support their beloved Bucks. The victory gave their Buccaneers an opportunity to compete in the NBL1 national finals, and after a very gallant run which saw them beat teams from Adelaide and Victoria—it is always good to beat any sporting team from Victoria—they could not quite get it done in the national championship game, although it is an incredible achievement for a regionally based sporting team to finish second. I think that is something that the whole of Geraldton is very proud of.
The Geraldton Buccaneers, established in 1989, is far more than a sporting team. It is a bit of an iconic institution in the Mid West. The Bucks regularly get 900 fans to come and watch them play at the Active West Stadium, and these games are a great opportunity to bring family and friends together in a really positive sporting environment. In an age when our sporting heroes are more and more inaccessible, my favourite part of a night at a Buccaneers game is when the players get around the young children and the families there and are able to sign autographs, have a chat and even have a few shots with them, although that is probably the last thing they feel like doing after a full game of basketball. Although they are a semi-professional basketball team, this organisation is run by a mountain of volunteers who do an incredible amount of work. I think it is really important that they are recognised as possibly the reason they have been propelled to now their fourth NBL1 championship, one in 2000, 2019, 2023 and of course, this year. Among these volunteers are the president and the general manager, who volunteer hundreds of hours for the smooth running of the Buccaneers at no financial renumeration to themselves.
Another WA sporting institution that relies heavily on volunteers is the West Australian Basketball League, or the WABL, as it is affectionately known, which is the premier junior basketball competition in Western Australia. Each week over 3,800 young athletes play on a Sunday to enjoy the sport they love. It has competitions from under-12s all the way up to under-21s. There are 13 WABL associations around WA. Most of them are in the metro area, but there is one in Bunbury and it goes from Joondalup to Bunbury and right out to Kalamunda, as well as being in Mandurah. I was fortunate to play WABL for the Warwick Senators, funnily enough, and although I enjoyed playing at my now geriatric athletic age, it is learnings about leadership, being part of a team and how to pick yourself up after a 40-point thrashing that have stayed with me. After more than 3,000 games in this season to date, this weekend we will see 84 teams battle it out in the grand finals of their respective divisions. One of those teams will be the Warwick Senators under-16 girls 3, who will take on the undefeated Willetton Tigers on Sunday. This is the team my daughter is a member of and, as any parent of a 14-year-old girl would know, I am not going to embarrass her by mentioning her name; otherwise, I will put myself in severe harm's way, so I will just stick with wishing her and her teammates the best of luck. Players are always a bit nervous going into a grand final undefeated and hopefully that is how that team's opposition feels and the Senators can get a win. Three names I will mention quickly are Jasmine, Sue and Scott, who are the team's coach, manager and videographer, and statistician respectively. These people are three of hundreds of volunteers, many of them parents, who make the WABL one of the best junior sports associations in Western Australia.
In closing, I would like to sincerely congratulate coach Dayle Joseph and the Geraldton Buccaneers on their incredible achievement this year, and a huge thankyou to all the volunteers who make WABL such a fantastic opportunity for young Western Australians to enjoy competitive basketball.
