Super Netball 2026: How West Coast Fever defied the odds, expectation to be on cusp of another grand final

At this point of the season last year, West Coast Fever had their feet up and were awaiting to find out who their grand final opponents would be. Under coach Dan Ryan, the powerhouse Super Netball club had produced the most dominant run in Australian domestic netball history. They’d won a record 13-consecutive games, and many believed they had one hand on a second premiership. History will show they were upset in the decider by the Melbourne Vixens — the same team they will meet in Saturday night’s do-or-die preliminary final at John Cain Arena. Less than a year has gone by, and the script has been flipped on the West Australian side. Fever have become the ultimate underdog story of 2026, defying the unavailability of star players to be on the cusp of a fifth grand final against all odds. Ryan told The West Australian the obstacles he’d faced since last year’s grand final defeat meant it had been the hardest season at the Fever in his five-year tenure. “The challenges have been endless and relentless, but when you put yourself in a situation to embrace those tough times as opportunities, you can really grow from them both individually but also as a team,” he said. “We reflect a lot on last year’s dominance, but perhaps the dominance saw us come unstuck under the pressure of a final, whereas this season we’ve been battling from day one and having to fight to find ways to win, to recapture form, to find consistency. “The hard stuff has been something we’ve been much more in-tune with this year and better equipped to handle, and hopefully that holds us in good stead come a do-or-die preliminary final.” The odds are always stacked against Fever because of the tyranny of distance, with their brutal travel schedule always having them up against it. But their backs have never been so far against the wall in the club’s history, given the personnel issues which have plagued their campaign. It all started when arguably their best defender, Sunday Aryang, ruptured her ACL while representing Australia, going down in the dying moments of the Constellation Cup series against New Zealand in October. Entering the prime of her career, Aryang’s absence for the entire year was always going to leave Fever short in the back of the court. And the best replacement for her is younger sister Ruth, who’s return to the court was uncertain as she recovered from a ruptured Achilles she’d sustained in April of 2025. Then, in December, the joyous news came that star shooter Jhaniele Fowler-Nembhard was pregnant with her second child. The collective netball world had wrapped its arms around Fowler-Nembhard and her family when they lost a child earlier that year. Fowler-Nembhard had returned to the court with a vengeance, starring for Fever to earn a sixth Super Netball Player-of-the-Year. However, her impending absence left new Fever netball boss Sara Francis-Bayman and Ryan without their best player and also most important defender. For most teams, this would almost be season over before it started. They took a risk, pulling veteran shooter Romelda Aiken-George out of retirement to partner 2022 grand final Most Valuable Player Sasha Glasgow — who returned from the Melbourne Mavericks after two seasons — in the goal circle. And they backed their international defensive duo of Fran Williams and Kadie-Ann Dehaney, as well as local product Caitlyn Brown, to hold up in the Aryangs’ absence. Even then, the setbacks continued to mount. They went into round one without young shooter Olivia Wilkinson (ankle) and midcourter Zoe Cransberg (foot). And through the middle of the year, Diamonds midcourter Alice Teague-Neeld was sidelined with a back complaint. Ryan had to dig deep into his stocks. Premiership star Verity Simmons was called out of retirement to cover in the midcourt, while training partner Sloan Burton made her debut. “We’ve had to fight since pre-season and through every game to get to this point in time,” Ryan said. “There have been games where we’ve had to rely on seven players to get us through, there are times where we’ve had to replace replacement players to field a squad, and we’ve really had to put ourselves through the wringer to get here to a preliminary final. “All of those challenges and tough moments and opportunities to build resilience and grow our connection have been really powerful in getting us to this point in time. “At the moment, everyone’s in a good space and confident in what they’re producing out on the court and really investing their full selves into the team. “We believe there is more in us; we’ve had to fight hard to get here, and we want to keep pushing on.” Fever continued to do enough to keep themselves in the top four throughout the season without ever being able to replicate their dominance of 12 months earlier. Then came the final round of the home-and-away season, when they needed to beat the Vixens by a minimum of eight goals or face an entire finals series on the road. Their luck turned, though, and they got their arch-rivals at the right time, with the reigning premiers out of form and not able to meet the intensity of the determined Fever, who won by nine goals and booked a home minor semifinal. It was their best performance of the season, until seven days later when they defeated the brash newcomers in the Melbourne Mavericks in front of their famed “Green Army” to keep their premiership hopes alive. “We’ve put in a lot of work over the past three or four weeks just to release some of the pressure, to get rid of some of the weight of expectation and the challenges that can create inconsistency and form struggles. “We’ve put all our attention individually into giving our best selves to the team, and we’re now seeing the team spirit, the team connection, and the team camaraderie really soar. We’re happy where we are at, at this moment, but we want to keep demanding more from ourselves and each other to take the next step.” All of it rides on Saturday night at John Cain Arena when another chapter in the epic rivalry between the Fever and Vixens will be written. They’ve met in three of the past six grand finals and have produced some of the best matches in modern-day Australian domestic netball history. The chance to battle the Adelaide Thunderbirds for this year’s premiership awaits the winner, with no tomorrow for the loser. And Ryan said he expected a “battle of attrition” from the first centre pass in the heavyweight preliminary final clash. “You’ve got to look at this game, and both of us are fighting for the exact same thing. We met in round 14, there were different agendas from both sides in terms of what the game meant to them, and this is a preliminary final where it is nil-all, it’s do or die,” he said. “It’s about how you fight, how you hang in, and how you maximise your moments across the 60 minutes of the game. “We’re expecting a battle. We’ve prepared for a hard, grinding game, and we just want to make sure we’re the last team standing in the battle.”