Homegrown talent the recipe for Gunners

• The Canberra Gunners beat the Geraldton Buccaneers 86-67 in the NBL1 National Finals championship game
• Why the NBL1 National Finals should have been a curtain raiser for the NBL Blitz
• 2025-26 NBL Team Lists and Roster Tracker

Homegrown talent powered the Canberra Gunners to the top of the NBL1 mountain, and it’s a connection built over years of playing together that paid dividends when it mattered most.

The Gunners claimed the NBL1 East Men’s Championship by sweeping through the finals and claiming a hard-fought win over Illawarra in the Grand Final, and they continued on their merry way at the NBL1 Nationals last weekend to win the NBL1 Men’s National Championship in front of a raucous home crowd in the nation’s capital.

There was a sense among those at the NBL1 National Finals that this Gunners team was building for this moment and destined for greatness. They delivered in spades after first surviving a nailbiter against the Sandringham Sabres 99-98. With each game, the Canberra fans packed the stands and created a true home court advantage for their beloved Gunners.

In the National Final, taking on the high-powered offence of the Geraldton Buccaneers, who took out championship honours in the West, Canberra went to work on the defensive end to hold the Buccs to 67 points, their lowest score of 2025. Holding any team to that score is no mean feat, but it’s even more impressive considering Geraldton averaged 101.5 points per game this season.

NBL1 Nationals Grand Final MVP and NBL1 East Defensive Player of the Year Will Mayfield – who recorded 21 points, 14 rebounds and 3 steals – spoke about defence being the Gunners’ calling card all season.

“We take pride in our defence, we have all year, so I’m very happy with that,” Mayfield said post-game.

“We just had to be super aggressive; we had to smother a super top-quality team like that. We just used our size to our advantage, crashed [the boards] all we could and got it done at the end of the day.”

To truly understand just how special being crowned National Champions was to this Canberra team, you need to go back years, decades even. All except import Evan Wardlow are locals, many of whom grew up playing with and against one another as they made their way through the ranks.

Because of that, this National Championship truly is Canberra’s, and the passion that emanated throughout Southern Cross Stadium when the final buzzer sounded on Sunday was something to behold.

It was a win for the believers.

“We’ve all known each other since we were little fellas, so to grow up together and get this done, #1 in the country, it’s unreal.” Mayfield said.

Coach Peter Herak – who was the NBL1 East Coach of the Year – has seen the development of Canberra’s homegrown talent first-hand, and in a scary thought for the rest of the country, there’s plenty more to come.

“I’ve known most of them since they were 14 to 15-years-old, I’ve been coaching them since then,” Herak said.

“There’s just so many juniors coming through and we love it.”

The local talent shone through in the biggest of moments all season and none more so than in the NBL1 East Grand Final. With the Illawarra Hawks leading by five points, 88-83, with under four minutes left to play, the Gunners finished the decider on a 16-3 run to take the game away from the Hawks and complete a fairytale comeback win.

Breaking through for the East crown was a testament to Canberra’s ability to stay with it after falling short to Maitland in the 2024 decider. They came back stronger and would not be denied this season.

They carried that momentum into the National Finals and after beating Geraldton, Herak highlighted how quickly the team got back to work after last year’s heartbreak.

“The boys, they got back in the gym straight after the grand final last year, so I knew we were always going to be good, but you’ve got to put it all together on the day and today we did that,” he said.

“This group of boys, I couldn’t be prouder of how amazing they are, how resilient they are. They fought all the way all season and thoroughly deserve this.”

With support for Canberra clear as day over the three days of National Finals, it begs the question, should Canberra be next in line for NBL expansion? There’s certainly a strong case for it, as outlined earlier this week.

Whether an NBL team returns to the nation’s capital or not, one thing is for sure; the Gunners are going to keep making waves in the NBL1.