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Ultimate Guide
Townsville Fire: Five things you need to know
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WNBL powerhouse Townsville Fire, with multiple championships, enters WNBL26 as title favourites
- Townsville won WNBL26, sweeping Perth 2-0 to claim a fifth championship in a decade.
- Suzy Batkovic won six WNBL MVP awards here, and the league's MVP trophy now carries her name.
- Captain Courtney Woods was named Grand Final MVP after an overtime classic in Perth.
On March 1, 2026, in a sold-out Perth High Performance Centre, the Townsville Fire won a game with 41 lead changes across 45 minutes of basketball and took home a fifth WNBL championship.
They had already won the pre-season tournament. They had already won the regular season. The sweep of Perth in the Grand Final series made it the complete year.
Ryan Petrik, whose Perth side lost it, put the club's standing better than we could.
"They've been the class organisation certainly in my six years," Petrik told basketball.com.au. "They've been the team everyone's chasing."
Opals and WNBA players who came through Townsville
Suzy Batkovic is the most decorated player in WNBL history and the reason this club became what it is.
She arrived from the Adelaide Lightning already holding two MVP awards and won four more in Townsville, finishing with six, the most in league history. The WNBL's Most Valuable Player award is now named after her. She won three championships with the Fire and remains the standard every player at the club is measured against.
Cayla George was part of the first title-winning sides and went on to become a WNBA champion.
Alex Fowler is the current Opal on the roster. The forward arrived at Townsville on the back of an Asia Cup MVP award and has since been named in Australia's final 12 for the FIBA Women's World Cup in Berlin.
Alicia Froling made her long-awaited Opals debut in July 2026, more than a decade into a career that nearly ended entirely.
Emma Clarke is the newest signing with a green and gold pedigree, joining the Fire after establishing herself as one of Australia's leading 3x3 players.
Courtney Woods, Abbey Ellis, Shyla Heal and Miela Sowah complete a list that says a lot about where the WNBL's talent has passed through.
The 2026 championship
The Grand Final series was a sweep, and the second game was anything but.
Townsville won Game 1 at home by nine. Game 2 in Perth went to overtime, finished 108-105, and produced 41 lead changes. Shannon Seebohm, a five-time WNBL Coach of the Year, was still processing it afterwards.
"That was one of the toughest, probably seesaw 50-50 games I've ever seen in the WNBL, and surely has to go down as one of the greatest finals games ever played," Seebohm said.
"They claw all the way back, and then it's lead change after lead change after lead change."
Woods took the Grand Final MVP with 26 votes. Her explanation of how the Fire kept winning close games was not tactical.
"We've been lucky. We had a hot start to the year. We won a lot of games by 30 points, all this stuff, and then after Christmas, everything just ground to a halt. We had to win close game after close game after close game," Woods said.
That title also closed a season the league will remember for other reasons. Finals attendance rose 34% on the previous year, averaging 2800 across seven games, in the first season under new ownership after a consortium took the WNBL over from Basketball Australia.
Alicia Froling and the left hand
The best individual story of the Grand Final belongs to a player who taught herself to shoot again.
Alicia Froling is right-handed. Wrist injuries threatened to end her career, so she switched to her left and kept playing. Multiple seasons later she is a WNBL champion because of it.
Across the Grand Final series she averaged 21 points and 7.5 rebounds, shot 70.8% from two-point range and played close to 39 minutes a game, much of it matched up against Han Xu, one of the best defensive centres in the world.
She finished second in Grand Final MVP voting with 19 votes.
WNBL27 team snapshot
The Fire begin next season as reigning champions in a league that has grown around them.
WNBL27 expands to nine teams with the arrival of the Tasmania Jewels, and the finals format expands from four teams to five. Shannon Seebohm has been locked in on a three-year extension.
Townsville has already added American scoring guard Lauren Jensen and 3x3 international Emma Clarke to a core that won everything last season.
Why the Fire matter
Every WNBL club has a story.
Bendigo turned a country town into a title contender. Canberra spent decades as the league's benchmark. Tasmania is about to become the league's ninth club after a 30-year absence.
Townsville is the one that proved a regional club can be a dynasty.
North Queensland is not a natural home for a professional sporting powerhouse. The Fire have won five championships in eleven seasons anyway, and have done it while becoming the club other organisations study for how to connect with a community.
The Batkovic era and the first championships
The Fire entered the WNBL in 2001 and spent more than a decade getting there.
The club reached the Grand Final in 2012-13 after finishing fourth, then lost to Bendigo again in 2013-14. Then they signed Suzy Batkovic from Adelaide, and everything changed.
Coached by Chris Lucas and captained by Rachael McCully, Townsville won the championship in 2014-15, 12 years after the club's inaugural season, and went back-to-back the following year.
"It was Suzy just doing Suzy things. She was the ultimate competitor and would do anything to win," McCully said.
A third title followed in 2017-18 under Claudia Brassard, who has since been appointed inaugural head coach of the Tasmania Jewels.
The Seebohm era
Shannon Seebohm took over for the 2019-20 season and has built the most sustained run in the modern league.
A fourth championship arrived in 2023, and the fifth in 2026. Across that period Townsville has been a Grand Final regular rather than an occasional visitor, and Seebohm has five Coach of the Year awards to show for it.
The greatest Fire players of all time
Suzy Batkovic is the greatest player in club history and one of the greatest in the league's, with six MVP awards and a trophy named after her.
Courtney Woods is the current captain, a Grand Final MVP and the player who held the group together through a season of close games.
Alicia Froling rebuilt her career with the wrong hand and won a championship with it.
Cayla George went from Townsville to a WNBA championship, and Alex Fowler has gone from Townsville to an Opals World Cup squad.
Rachael McCully captained the side that broke the drought, and Chris Lucas coached it.
Five Fast Facts
1. Townsville has won five WNBL championships, the most recent in 2026 against Perth.
2. Suzy Batkovic won a record six WNBL MVP awards and the league's MVP trophy is named after her.
3. Game 2 of the WNBL26 Grand Final featured 41 lead changes and went to overtime.
4. Shannon Seebohm has won five WNBL Coach of the Year awards.
5. Alicia Froling switched from her right hand to her left after wrist injuries, and won a championship playing left-handed.
Club timeline
- 2001: The Townsville Fire join the WNBL.
- 2013: Reach a first Grand Final and lose to Bendigo.
- 2014: Sign Suzy Batkovic from the Adelaide Lightning.
- 2015: Win a first WNBL championship.
- 2016: Go back-to-back.
- 2018: Win a third title under Claudia Brassard.
- 2019: Shannon Seebohm is appointed head coach.
- 2023: Win a fourth championship.
- 2026: Sweep Perth to win a fifth, with Courtney Woods named Grand Final MVP.
Looking ahead
Townsville enters WNBL27 as the team to beat, which is where the club has spent most of the last decade.
Seebohm is signed for three more years. Woods and Froling are still here. Fowler comes back from a World Cup in Berlin, and Emma Clarke arrives from the 3x3 program. Lauren Jensen adds scoring to a side that won the pre-season, the regular season and the championship in the same year.
The league is changing underneath them. Nine clubs, a five-team finals series, new ownership and record crowds. The Fire have spent a decade being the club everyone else measures themselves against, and nothing about this offseason suggests that is about to stop.
