Team set to feel right at home in Townsville Woods excited for debut season in the top league
FROM the frantic scenes in the US when the pandemic hit all the way to Townsville, the journey back to the court has been long and winding for Courtney Woods.
But the new Townsville Fire recruit has found her feet quickly on her return home, and is eagerly awaiting the beginning of her first WNBL season.
She won’t have to travel far to compete either with the entire season being played in her new backyard.
The shooting guard spent five years in the US playing college basketball for the Northern Illinois Huskies, refining her craft in a bid to become a force on Australian courts.
There she impressed beyond belief, setting the NIU season record for most threepointers made in a season with 105 – making her just the sixth player in Mid-american Championship history to reach the century mark.
While she saw some of the worst scenes of COVID during her final days in America,
Woods will now enjoy a strange benefit of the pandemic with Townsville preparing to host 32 games of WNBL action next month.
“I got out of there (America) pretty quick, right when COVID hit I flew home. It’s really nice being back here. It was a bit of an adjustment with the weather – especially in Townsville – but I’m loving being home,” Woods said.
“Going through COVID it was a lot of uncertain times, and for a long time we thought there wasn’t even going to be a season.
“This is my first year in the WNBL, so I was super excited to even have the opportunity to play, let alone be a part of the club where we’re getting a massive amount of home games.”
When the WNBL pre-season officially begins, a hub is set to be the environment players will live under – presenting greater freedoms than the ‘bubble’ scenario NRL players have endured.
In addition, the fact all games will be played between Townsville, Cairns and Mackay diminishes the need to travel extensively, and Woods said this would provide a greater opportunity for athletes to be prepared, fit and ready to attack the condensed season at full throttle.
“Obviously it’s a lot less time we spend on the road, more time we can spend in the gym getting our bodies right and getting our game right,” Woods said.
While Woods has had the opportunity to play some fixtures in Brisbane, Townsville product Nadeen Payne has been kept to only a few oneon-one training sessions with Fire coach Shannon Seebohm.
The 27-year-old power forward will finally pull on Fire colours again, having not represented the side since back in 2012.
Stints throughout the competition with Adelaide, South East Queensland, Bendigo and Perth paint a picture of her journeywoman stature, but to be back in the region in a year when the whole WNBL will feature on North Queensland soil adds to her enthusiasm.
Almost an entirely new team will greet Fire fans in 2020, with Zitina Aukoso and Kate Gaze the only familiar faces from the outfit that plummeted to the bottom of the ladder last season.