IT is not easy to win a premiership in any sport, let alone in your first season at the helm, but that is something West Coast Fever coach Dan Ryan achieved last night.

Speaking last night post match, you could not wipe the smile off his face. Speaking about what he and his team had achieved, he said that he was “unbelievably proud. This is the stuff you dream about, the stuff when you first get into the game as a young kid. These are the moments that you feel like sometimes may never come but the things that that get you out of bed every single day and for it all to come together like it did for us today on Grand Final day, unbelievable and it’s going to be a moment that we’ll never forget for the rest of our lives.”

Ryan said that all year they had the belief that they would be able to win the flag.

“Deep down I knew we could, and the whole plan and the whole purpose was to do it, and we talked really openly as a team about what we wanted to achieve and how we were going to get there and we weren’t afraid to say that we wanted to create history and we weren’t afraid to put ourselves in pressure situations and find whether we could rise or fall in those moments. Our last two games under the pressure of finals, I’ve seen an unbelievable maturity in these players and they’ve been so willing to lean into those uncomfortable moments that you take in championships.”  

Even though they have finally won the flag, the hunger for more success is still there.

“I think now that we’ve broken through, we are going to have this hunger to want to do it again, there’s no question about that, and once you release that pressure, I know wholeheartedly there’s another level of standard within this group that we can dive into” said Ryan. “We found our very best standard today that was our best right now, but there’s more in them and what we’re going to do is actually sit in this moment as a team, enjoy it for as long as we possibly can as the history making West Coast Fever.”

Despite the way things finished up for Ryan with the Adelaide Thunderbirds at the end of 2018, Ryan was determined that that would not be the nail in the coffin for this coaching career.

“I was able to maintain perspective of that experience in Adelaide, and I was determined to ensure it was going to be the start of me, not the end of me, and I think my response from after those two years and what I did next. You know, I took a 80 grand pay cut and moved to the UK for $5000 for a year and lived off savings so I could keep coaching, that’s what it meant to me. The door of opportunity opened here at Fever, the club believed in me, and when you’ve got people around you that can support you ad build you up, these things can happen. I’m just so proud to be a part of history with these girls and to be connected to them for the rest of their lives.”

In terms of the future, good news Fever fans – Ryan does not intend on going anywhere any time soon. He is happy in Perth and he bought a house recently so looks like he’ll be around for a while yet to come.