CAPTAIN’S CALL
with Townsville Fire player Suzy Batkovic
THE curtain is finally calling for the class of ’ 99.
Earlier this week, Sydney Uni Flames captain Belinda Snell, or Snelly as she is more commonly known, announced that she would be joining me in retirement at the end of the 2018- 19 season.
It’s been 20 years since Snelly and I played in that famous AIS championship together alongside Lauren Jackson, Penny Taylor and Kristen Veal, just to name a few.
While we are the last two still standing, it almost feels fitting that we will both walk away together at the same time.
Not a lot has changed with Snelly over the years.
She was a year behind me at the AIS and joined me at the Sydney Panthers shortly after when we won our second title together in 2000- 01.
She’s always been a quiet teammate – maybe she couldn’t get a word in edgeways – but a great teammate nonetheless and has developed into a wonderful leader.
Right from the outset you knew that she was a worldclass shooter, but she has more strings to her bow than just hurting teams from deep beyond the perimeter.
She’s strong as an ox and is able to get to the rim, so she’s always been hard to guard.
While a calf injury is expected to rule her out of today’s game, I look forward to playing against her again before we both call time.
Having won three Olympic medals playing together, we have developed a bond that can’t be broken by playing for different clubs. She’ll be a friend for life. After we won our second title together, our paths would often cross when we were playing against each other in Europe and in the WNBA and it was always great to see her smiling face.
When you are on the opposite side of the world, it can be hard at times and it was al- ways great to be able to catch up over dinner and see another Aussie when you may have been missing home.
As we both know, there aren’t too many fairytale endings in sport, but I’m sure we’d both love to finish our careers with one final championship.
I’ll be doing everything I can to make that happen for the Fire and that continues today when we host the Flames in a must- win match.
I hope to see you all there from 2pm.