Steady hands are still at helm
THEY endured very different campaigns at the helm this season but Kerry Williams and Myra Donkin will return as the respective Marlins and Dolphins head coaches in 2022, with unfinished business.
Williams will be hoping the Marlins can go one better after they fell at the final hurdle in the inaugural NBL1 North competition, going down in the best-of-three grand final series to the Mackay Meteors, while Donkin has decided to relinquish her playing duties to solely focus on coaching the Dolphins, after she was a player-coach this season.
Stalwarts of the Cairns Basketball system, both former players have suited up in state competitions and at a national level (NBL/WNBL) and have a wealth of coaching experience.
Cairns Basketball general manager Mike Scott said Williams and Donkin were the perfect candidates when they joined for the inaugural NBL1 North season, and that they would only get better.
“This year was a bit chaotic because of the Taipans’ season going longer than expected, and we were thinking what are we going to do and who’s going to coach what,” he said.
“We always had Kerry pencilled in for the Dolphins and we were just holding off until we saw how the NBL season would go, and as you know it blew out into June, so we had to rethink what we were doing and we didn’t do that until late January. Then we had to go hard to work out what was going to happen, so to be able to lock Kerry and Myra in this early in the process is unusual for us but we wanted to be more proactive this year and we were comfortable with reappointing both of them.
“They both did a good job with the group they had – we know the Dolphins on paper didn’t look great, but when you analyse what they did with who they had, it was a reasonably good season.
“If you took out the two veterans – Myra and Emma Nakamura – you’re looking at an average age of about 17.
“They were a very young group and their performances were pretty commendable given that we threw them in the deep end, so we were pretty happy with that.”
Williams said he was looking forward to coaching the Marlins for a second season.
“It’s awesome – it’s probably one of my favourite things, Cairns Basketball,” he said.
“It’s my life, I should say – I don’t know anything else, I only know Cairns Basketball.
“Coaching the men’s program is a great honour and I’m more than happy to do it.”
Scott said Williams would enter his second year as Marlins head coach after a season as a member of the Taipans coaching staff, and would be richer for the experience.