Fire's resiliency impresses WNBL legend

They recruited strongly during the WNBL off-season and won the inaugural Townsville Tip-Off.

Now the Townsville Fire are receiving praise from one of the competition's greatest-ever players.

Following their gutsy grand final replay win over champions Bendigo on Sunday, WNBL legend and former Fire star Suzy Batkovic lauded Townsville's resiliency.

“It was an amazing first game. I feel like they’ve been given a bit of a tough challenge, where it’s four weekends in a row on the road, which is always hard,” Batkovic said to CODE Sports.

“It got a little bit interesting at one point, which had me yelling at my TV, but it was fantastic. They stuck together, which is a really good sign, considering it’s the first game.

“It’s been a short-lived pre-season, but to stick together when the tide started to change and they lost that little bit of lead, and came out and won, it was just fantastic.”

As Batkovic, who the WNBL's MVP award is named after, alluded to, the Fire play their first games of the 2025-26 campaign on the road, including this Saturday's Indigenous Round fixture in Canberra against the UC Capitals.

The first home fixture for Shannon Seebohm's team is on Saturday, November 15 against the Capitals.

Their Round 2 fixture tips off at 7pm AEDT, live on ESPN2 and 9Now.

Tickets for the clash are still available here.

Read the full story here >>  Suzy Batkovic reveals why the Townsville Fire have proven to be title contenders early in the WNBL championship