The Wrap The Bendigo Spirit Are The 2025 Wnbl Champions

I don't know how badly I wanted to wear my new T-shirt today,

but I thought I should better not.

Why not?

I just don't want to tease the people too much.

Oh, you should have done it.

Welcome to the wrap.

That was a good little cheeky plug.

New merch coming soon.

A weekly podcast covering women's sports news.

Bez, what have we got around the grounds this week?

The Bendigo Spirit are the 2025 WNBL champions,

beating Chloe's second team.

My second team.

The Townsville Fire.

No, Georgia Vol has equaled the highest individual score

in women's Premier League cricket history,

and Molly Taylor is a race of champions quarterfinalist.

For the key story, we'll discuss a new alliance

of world-leading sports scientists,

which is being labelled as transformational

for the future of women's sport.

My name is Chloe Dalton.

I'm joined every week on the show by my co-host, Bez.

Just single name, just Bez.

Just Bez.

No full name.

I'm like Beyonce.

We've said this before.

We have.

But it's true.

It's a recycled joke.

Hey, International Women's Day was on Saturday.

We went for a run.

Well, you and I walked.

We walked.

Mostly everyone else ran.

Yeah, there wasn't many walkers with us.

It was really, really cool.

We partnered up with Femi, which is an amazing women's run club

that are based all around Australia and over in New Zealand as well.

It was the first time we've actually done an in-real-life event.

Yeah, it was great.

Awesome panel that you led in the morning with some amazing panellists

that spoke about some really important,

important topics.

Yes, absolutely.

We are giving away Summit Teas.

We've got a couple left over.

And we thought, you know what?

We love our loyal podcast listeners.

So if you want, I've got one on, so check out our socials

if you don't know what they look like.

But they're a white tee with TFAP Summit 2025.

They're the first and exclusive TFAP Summit tee.

Send us a DM or send us an email with your size.

And if you're the first to get in for that size,

you're a winner.

We'll send it to you.

And finally, my last agenda of this month.

Meeting this Thursday, new episode with Jackie Narikot.

She does the skeleton or as Baz likes to call it.

Baz.

I'm going to call you Baz.

Sliding headfirst down the hill on a Macca's tray.

She's epic, Jackie, and has an amazing story.

We are recording on Gadigal land.

Let's take a look around the ground.

In basketball, the Bendigo Spirit are the newest WNBL champions.

After a 63-55 win over the Townsville Fire, rip.

In front of a sold-out Townsville crowd,

they couldn't get the job done, the crowd.

That's so sad.

Ouch.

It was Bendigo's third title in franchise history,

their last coming in 2013,

and a statement finish after a near-decade absence

from the postseason.

It was physical and defense dominated early

with more than three minutes passing

before the contest's first field goal.

As both sides missed their opening five shots,

nervous or what?

Serious nerves, like genuine anxiety.

Whoa.

Bendigo settled first and moved ahead 11-5

before Townsville recovered to lead 21-20 at quarter time

with Cox scoring 13 points.

The Fire then went on an 11-0 run either side of the first break

to motor ahead to 29-20.

Townsville dominated the offensive rebounds 11-2 in the first half,

but the poor perimeter shooting kept Bendigo in the hunt.

Sammy Whitcomb and Mariana Tolo combined to close Townsville's buffer

to 34-33 at halftime before the Spirit, as in game one,

of the grand final series,

got on top courtesy of a third-quarter defensive masterclass.

That's a good little small and tall combo, isn't it?

Oh, my gosh.

Great combo.

Whitcomb and Tolo.

And just like very experienced level heads.

Yeah.

Tough to compete with.

Got the job done.

Yes, they did.

The Fire had more turnovers than points for the term.

Oh, that hurts.

Ten turnovers, seven points.

That's tough.

I don't know really how you recover from that.

And Bendigo led by Sammy Whitcomb.

Turns out they didn't.

You don't.

That's the answer, everyone.

It's the result of the game.

Townsville went more than seven minutes without a field goal

as the Spirit's lead swelled to double digits.

And while the Fire diligently chipped away,

the Spirit were too strong to be overcome.

League MVP Sammy Whitcomb added a Rachel Sporn grand final MVP award

to her growing trophy cabinet after scoring 26 points.

All the MVPs.

She is MVP squared.

While Mariana Tolo, as we said, great combo,

combined 17 points with nine rebounds.

In Rugby Union.

Oh, tell us, tell us about it.

The New South Wales Waratahs came from behind to steal victory

from the hands of the Western Force,

beating them 26-21 to collect their first win of the Super W season.

And it was a very relieving one.

Waratahs fly out.

Desiree Miller got the game off to a flying start,

beating three defenders and the fourth one landed on top of her.

She scored the try to score the opener.

Desi is elite at finding space.

Finding space in small, small little spaces.

Finding gaps in small spaces is what I probably should have said.

It was good to see her back, wasn't it?

It was.

The game flipped on its head, though,

after that with two tries to the force by Ash Masters and Annika Stephens,

giving the visitors a 14-5 lead.

But Miller was once again the hero for the Tars,

running a pretty supreme inside line,

off an even more supreme inside ball from Cheech Barker.

Oh, I loved it.

Cheech.

Cheech just sold it well, didn't she?

It was.

Looking like she was going outside hip and then bam.

She did the little soft little pump outside and then just ripped it inside to Desi.

And Desi's line was great.

Like, good luck to the forwards trying to stop that.

Yeah, never happening.

It was a top shelf try.

And so that took us to the break down 14-12.

It was a very tense second half.

Neither team were able to score until the 64th minute

when Wallaroo Centre Cecilia Smith delivered a timely blow

to put the match on the table.

And it was a very close game.

And it was a very close game.

And it was a very close game.

And it was a very close game.

Yeah.

How sweaty were your palms at this point in time?

Yeah.

Pretty sweaty.

You know, I know you know me very well,

but you know when I get nervous and I go really quiet?

That happened.

The only time.

That happened.

But I was always supremely confident.

Leilani Nathan had a massive game.

She powered her way over the line,

beating four defenders herself,

reduced the margin to two with just eight minutes left to play.

Yeah.

And we are just ad-libbing here

because I need to talk about the scrum penalty.

Massive scrum, 40 out, Western Force feed,

and the girls just switched it on and powered over them,

won the scrum penalty, got down into the 22

and backed our rolling ball and Adiana Talakai scored on full time

to win the game.

And the girls were pumped.

Yeah.

Look, it's, you know,

obviously the Waratahs have been very strong in this competition,

for a long time, for eight years, seven years.

Tough to say.

2018 it started.

Yeah, eight years.

Nice.

It's really good.

Like we've seen players leave.

We've actually got a few injuries at the moment,

but it's fantastic to see the other franchises building their teams

and the competition evening out.

It's not very good for my heart.

I prefer a 40-point win,

but I'll take it.

I'll take it.

I'll take it.

I'll take it.

I'll take it.

I'll take a five-point win.

Yeah.

I really loved seeing how competitive that game was.

And we know how much talent the Force have this season.

They've recruited very, very well in the off-season.

And I, like, obviously, I'm Waratahs throwing through.

Otherwise, you'd never be my friend ever again.

I don't know what my other choice would be, being from New South Wales.

But it is really great, I think,

for the competition to see the growth of the other teams.

Yeah, it's fantastic.

And I think looking at that now, for me, it's an excellent reason.

And amongst a myriad of reasons that we need to play a longer season

and play home and away and have a real proper crack at it

to let the girls get even better.

Absolutely.

In cricket, Australia's Georgia Vol has equaled the highest individual score

in Women's Premier League history with a blistering 99 not out

on a record-setting weekend in India.

Did you see the ending?

Hang on.

So no one's hit a century in the WPL?

No.

Wow.

Oh, my gosh.

Who's going to be the first to do it?

I didn't see the ending.

It was a final ball situation, and she needed two.

And then they went to run the second.

There was never two in it.

Yeah.

And her teammate got run out at the other end.

Okay.

She was never going to make it anyway.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Oh, my gosh.

That's great.

Vol's onslaught included 17 boundaries and a six in a 56-ball blitz

that saw the UP Warriors hit a WPL record of five for 225.

In reply, defending champions,

Royal Challengers Bengaluru were bowled out for 213

and were eliminated from this year's playoff contention.

Vol's unbeaten 99 equaled the mark set by New Zealand icon Sophie Devine

as the highest in league history,

while she narrowly missed out, as I questioned earlier,

on becoming the first century maker of the tournament.

Damn.

That would have been a cool – that's a cool mantle.

Oh, yeah.

Sophie's actually written in here what I poorly tried to describe earlier.

Yeah.

Yeah, she needed two from the final ball of the innings.

Vol drilled a shot to mid-on,

and her partner was run out trying to come back for a second.

More better.

Yeah, more better.

Thanks, Soph.

In football news, in the A-League,

women's the ninth-place Perth Glory have beaten fourth-place Western United

three-zip in a major upset.

Recently capped football fern Kelly Brown opened the scoring for the Glory

when she buried the ball into the bottom right corner

to give the host a deserved 1-0 lead.

Matilda's.

Midfielder Chloe Legazzo came close to finding an instant reply

for Western United when she shot on the turn inside the box,

but she was denied by the woodwork.

It actually blows my mind how often they hit the post.

They're not that big.

Because if they were trying, it wouldn't happen.

Exactly.

No chance.

If you tried to kick the post –

That crossbar challenge is the hardest thing you could ever do, I reckon.

Ever.

Ever.

With just over 20 minutes to play in the second half,

a special moment presented for Glory midfielder Susan Fonson-Karm,

who came off the bench to mark her long-awaited injury return

after an ankle injury suffered in the NPL Victoria Grand Final in September.

With just over 20 minutes left to play,

it was Kelly Brown who struck again to convert her brace.

Five minutes later, it was party time in Perth for Glory

as a penalty awarded to the host sent Susan Fonson-Karm to the spot

for a coolly taken penalty in her first game back.

In surfing.

That's not surfing.

WSL, I love that.

It's surfing.

It's so confusing.

How do they have the same acronym?

Too many acronyms are the same.

I saw it for context.

I saw WSL and said in surfing, but it's actually football.

Women's Super League.

Overseas, in football, Manchester City and West Ham have played out

a one-all draw in the Women's Super League, as we said.

It took all the way until the 80th minute for the deadlock to finally break

as Khadija Shaw, a.k.a. Bunny, responded to Mary Fowler's cross

to make it 1-0 in City's favour.

It seemed as if the game would end with a hard-fought single goal

win for the citizens, but the 91st minute saw West Ham's Manuela Parvey

pull one back for her side, much to the disheartenment of Manchester City.

While City still sit comfortably within the league's top four,

they remain 12 points behind league leaders Chelsea

with seven rounds left to play.

You feeling pretty comfortable there?

Sorry about it, City.

In some motorsport news, over the weekend, Australia hosted the Race of Champions

for the first time.

An Extreme E driver, Molly Taylor, did the Aussies, and the women,

proud, making it through to the quarterfinals.

So what is the Race of Champions, Chloe?

Well, actually, producer Soph was there in real life on Saturday.

So, Soph, why don't you tell us what it is through the laptop?

Hello, everyone.

So the Race of Champions is a head-to-head car race where drivers

from all different disciplines, that being rally cars, F1s, supercars,

NASCAR, Extreme E.

All battle it out to be crowned the Champion of Champions.

But the catch is, to make it fair, they all have to drive a range

of six different vehicles.

So some were driving vehicles they were really familiar with,

while some were completely out of their depth,

driving things they'd never driven before.

So it all came down to what car you got given and a bit of luck.

The coolest part was that a core stadium was turned into a side-by-side,

one-kilometre racetrack.

So you could see the cars literally racing side-by-side,

and they were driving the same.

So you could see them finish at the line at the same time.

Molly blitzed the group stage, beating fellow Extreme E driver

Johan Christofferson and then Greek driver Mikhail Romanidis

to progress to the quarters.

But she then went down 2-0 in a close contest to French driver

Sébastien Loeb, who actually went on to win the Race of Champions

and not lose a single race.

So we can basically say Molly lost to the winner.

So she came second, right?

She absolutely came second.

Okay.

Talk us through the six different cars.

Like are they driving like a Toyota Camry at some point?

Oh, yeah, that's definitely one of them.

They got the old Tarago out.

You've got to put all the kids in the back.

Yes, they should so do that.

They should be driving a Kia Carnival.

Yes.

What are they driving?

So the cars they actually drove included rallycross cars,

supercar lights, Subaru BRZs, Toyota GR86s,

and my personal favourite, the Polaris,

which looked like a bouncy car because when it went over the ramp

and got airtime, it was bouncy over the airtime.

Really bouncy over the airtime.

That's definitely motorsport lingo.

Love it.

I love it.

I love that.

Amazing.

Thank you, Soph, for the update.

Thanks for joining us live on the podcast.

Love that.

In a bit of golf, Australian Minji Lee has finished solo second

at the Bromley.

The Blue Bay LPGA event in China,

carting a five under 67 in the final round to earn her second top five result

of the 2025 season.

Play was two under through 36 holes opening with a two under 70 on Thursday

and then posting an even par 72 on Friday.

The Australian turned up the heat on moving day.

Is that because you either make it or you don't?

Yes.

You're not moving house.

Third day.

Third day.

Moving day.

It's kind of funny description, isn't it?

It's like the third quarter.

Third quarter.

Championship quarter.

Premiership quarter.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like it.

Firing a four under 68 with two chip in eagles on her scorecard.

How good's a chip in eagle?

What is it?

How good is it?

What is it, Chloe?

No, you tell me.

Wait.

Eagle is?

Come on, you got this.

One under.

Nope.

Damn it.

A birdie's one under.

Damn it.

It was the same type of bird.

An eagle's like a special birdie.

Two under.

Two under.

Damn it.

So a chip in, like, have you?

Have you literally gone, chipped it in with your wedge for two under par?

So say it's a par four.

Yeah.

She's hit off the tee.

I was better than I was.

She's drained it from wherever she's hit her tee shot to.

I rate that.

So no putting.

No putting.

No putting.

I've lost where I'm up to, but I thought that was a good enough explanation for where we

got to.

Do you want to take over that part?

She picked up two birdies on 15 and 18 to close out her own round, posting a 67 to finish

six strokes.

She's the world's behind champion, Japan's Rio Takeda.

Let's take a look at the key story.

The Global Alliance for Female Athletes, GAFA.

I like that acronym.

Yeah, right.

GAFA.

GAFA.

We'll see leading health practitioners and sports scientists from Australia, the United

States, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand join forces to help female athletes overcome

prevalent health issues to reach their full sporting potential.

We spoke a little bit about this at the panel.

We touched on something similar to this in the panel on Saturday in regards to the complete

lack of research done on female athletes.

Yeah, the panel discussion was very interesting.

We had Gina from the COVID project and they worked to address period poverty here in Australia

and also over in Africa.

We had Dr. Izzy Smith, who is an endocrinologist.

So she was kind of talking about the women's health.

And then we had Anne O'Donnell.

I was about to call Anne Dr. Anne.

Dr. Anne.

She's now a doctor.

We should call her Dr. Anne.

Dr. Anne.

Dr. Anne.

Dr. Anne.

Dr. Anne.

Dr. Anne.

Anne O'Donnell, media and comms manager at the Matildas.

And the way the panel blended the different topics, like the way each of those experts

weighed in around women's health, it was, yeah, sorry, it just kind of reminded me of

this gaffer thing.

Yeah.

The combining of the powers.

Yes, that's very true.

The collaboration.

Nice.

Good word.

The long-term intention is to increase the breadth and type of resources available and

to remove impairment and language barriers so that everyone has access to the information

they need.

Currently,

only around 6% of sports science and medicine research is actually based on female athletes.

That is absurd, isn't it?

It's mind-blowing.

6%.

We are not in an age where female athletes are hard to find.

Geez, I'd love to do some research on a woman, but I cannot find any.

I wish I could find an elite female athlete somewhere around.

Like, come on.

Anne O'Donnell actually spoke to, when we were talking about this medical research component,

she spoke to,

how the Matildas were part of long-term studies, which I think is so important, and Dr. Izzy

was saying that those studies need to be not just six-week things, they need to be two-year

kind of things to get the proper results that are required to kind of implement change.

So, this all sounds super promising.

So, all of the critical information that many athletes rely on is actually being done on

men.

So, that's what we're saying.

Like, all of that research currently is being done on men, and we're just trying to pink

it and shrink it for women.

Which, you know, is my favorite thing in the world.

Oh, yeah, that's rough.

Australian Institute of Sport, the AIS, Female Performance Health Initiative project lead,

Dr. Rachel Harris said,

On a global scale, health literacy around female-specific conditions is poor.

This gap in knowledge, coupled with widespread misinformation, means athletes often miss

the early warning signs and go undiagnosed or are inadequately treated for conditions

like endometriosis or dysmenorrhea.

Athletes are then forced to miss training days, which reduces their chances of

making competition, or in some cases, sees them leave the sport altogether.

Our goal is to change this.

Wow.

Because I'd seen this headline, and I hadn't read into it yet until I was hosting a live

podcast.

That's my life these days.

That doesn't sound like you at all.

No.

I think I've probably seen it.

You know how we see so much around ACL injuries in female athletes?

I'd probably seen this and thought, we're chatting ACL injuries here.

I love, because I literally read that.

I'm like, oh my goodness.

That has been my experience with what I'd say is probably undiagnosed endometriosis.

And the Giants and the AFLW have significantly improved access to information and resources

and the right referral pathways and things, which has been great.

But the fact that we have four huge players in terms of these nations coming together,

surely that's going to accelerate this.

I totally agree.

So as it stands, there are currently 12 modules available on the GAFA website discussing topics,

including?

Not just ACLs, puberty and development, menstrual cycle abnormalities, body image,

energy availability, myths, fact or fiction.

I love the myths one.

So it's so important to debunk some ridiculous.

The misinformation is so dangerous.

In another major first, future projects will be conquered as a collective rather than silos.

We love to hear it.

Progress will be made at a much quicker rate.

You know why?

Because a rising tide lifts all boats.

Yes, that's why you're my friend.

The four nations met.

They're face to face for the first time in the 2024 Women in Sport Congress in Sydney

and will meet again in June for the Female Athlete Conference in Boston.

How do we get an invite to that?

I don't know.

Let's look into that.

We don't have any medical.

Oh, I mean, I'm a physio.

Forget that so often.

You genuinely have a medical degree.

I literally was like, we don't have any medical background.

It's just my life.

It's dormant.

It is.

It is so dormant.

Let's take a look at what to watch.

Team Girls Cup.

Netball is back.

I feel like it only just finished.

Yeah.

The girls, they play a lot of netball.

They are starting with the Team Girls Cup on Friday.

The event marks the first opportunity to see all eight Suncourt Super Netball teams in action.

The tournament begins, as we said, on Friday at 5.30 p.m.

AEDT when the West Coast Fever face off against the Queensland Fireboards.

Fireboards.

Fireboards.

The old fireboards.

And you can watch it all weekend long on KO Freebies.

In rugby, the Queensland Reds will be looking to become the first.

team to win their opening two Super W games.

And they host the New South Wales Waratahs this Sunday.

The match kicks off at 3.05 p.m.

AEDT and you can watch it live and free on Stan Sports.

Do they have a bye?

Yeah, they had a first round bye.

And if you're in Queensland, get down to Ballymore, 2 o'clock Queensland time and wear blue or don't come.

In the Women's A-League place, Adelaide United will be hoping to put an end to Melbourne City's unbeaten streak in this year's A-League.

When they head to Melbourne on Sunday, you can catch that game live on Paramount Plus at 4 p.m.

AEDT.

In not surfing football, Manchester United will be hoping to extend their winning streak to eight in a row when they head to Anfield to face Liverpool this weekend.

The match kicks off on Saturday morning at 6.15 a.m.

That's usually what morning is, AEDT.

You can watch it live or not for sports.

Your night morning is all blended at the moment, isn't it?

The sleep deprivation is rough.

And in golf, the Australian Women's Classic is being hosted in Coffs Harbour this weekend.

Oh, Kerry and Eric, are you going?

You can follow along with all the action on Fox Sports when practice starts on Thursday morning, AEDT.

I love that.

Shout out to the in-laws.

My in-laws, they live in Coffs and they love the golf.

And TFAP.

And TFAP.

That's the wrap.

See you next week.

Bye.

Don't forget, send us a message if you want a t-shirt.

Getting quick.

Free stuff.

Bye.