Seeing Rockingham rise where 300-gamer 'Boof's' pride sits

Nobody lives and breathes Rockingham Basketball quite like Flames captain Ryan Godfrey and while he's the club's first ever championship captain and ahead of his 300th game, ever the ultimate team man wants the focus on the bigger picture.

What Godfrey's 300-game milestone does provide is the chance to reflect on just how far things have come with the Flames in terms of their growth into a great success off the court in Rockingham, and on it to being the reigning NBL1 West and National Champions.

It has been a remarkable journey for Godfrey too. He fondly remembers watching the Flames of the 1990s out there playing, dreaming of doing the same thing one day.

Once he returned from college at the University of West Georgia where he was teammates of fellow 300-gamer and Cockburn Cougars legend Gavin Field, Godfrey has been the cornerstone of the Flames backcourt from 2007 onwards.

Whether it's using his scoring talents both to get to the rack or shoot from the outside, to run the team and right now to help facilitate Devondrick Walker, Marshall Nelson, Jeremy Combs and Tom Jervis, or to be the outstanding leader he is, everything Godfrey has done has set the standards.

What does it mean to reach 300 games

The man affectionately known as 'Boof' will now reach 300 games this Saturday night when the Flames host the Perth Redbacks, and it's a milestone that hasn’t quite sunk in with the 33-year-old just yet. 

"Oh geez, I don’t even know if it's sunk in at this point and it's probably not something that will sink in," Godfrey said.

"It might sink in once the career finishes, but just at this point I don’t really feel like I've played 300 games even though it feels like I've been around for ages. But just in terms of playing and where I'm at, it's really enjoyable at the moment and the 300 games with one club is always nice though. 

"I'm a pretty loyal person as it is so it is pretty special but I would throw out 300 games to have more championships. It's a nice milestone but you play the game ultimately because you want to win and to win those two championships last year is probably really what hits home to me more than the 300 games."

Milestone night to savour for so many reasons

Not only is Saturday night going to be a special occasion at Mike Barnett Sports Complex for Godfrey to celebrate his 300th game, but it's also the annual clash between the Flames and Perth Redbacks in honour of the late Anthony Exeter.

Exeter is a former MVP of the league from his 304-game career split between the two clubs that finished in 2007 just as Godfrey was beginning his own career that has now reached 300 games.

While Godfrey is rightfully proud to reach 300 games himself, it's playing for something special like the Anthony Exeter Cup to remember one of the great players, and people, of West Australian basketball that puts it all in perspective.

"When you put it all like that and you throw Ex in there, he was a guy whose last year was my first in the league and I looked up to him," Godfrey said.

"I saw him play him a few times and I remember the MVP season he had in 2000. He was an incredible player and some of the things he did even in his last year and you could see the standard you need to get to if you want to be a good player in this league. 

"He was a guy I looked up to and it's nice that two clubs can come together in recognition of him. Every game we've played so far has been a pretty good hit out and it's nice that it gives an opportunity for past Redbacks and Flames players to come together."

What the NBL1 West and National Championships meant

This time last year and the Rockingham men had still yet to achieve any championship glory. That soon changed as they went on to win the NBL1 West championship for the first time and then go on to claim the NBL1 National Championship in Melbourne a week later.

Godfrey was the captain of all of that and not only that, was the Grand Final MVP of the National Championship Game. With how full on life is he never really got to reflect until months later, and now the quest is on to go back-to-back.

"When you work full-time it has its challenges to ever wind down really and working in education it's insane the daily responsibilities you have and what goes through the brain," Godfrey said.

"But really it didn’t sink in until I was able to take a break from work and a break from basketball so it wasn’t until about December last year when I could reflect on the year. Personally I had a big year with a few things going on in my life and then in terms of basketball, it was obviously amazing. 

"You walk around the Rockingham community and walk around Mike Barnett and people are still talking about that Grand Final night or watching that National Championship on Kayo. 

"To see the memories those people have with their kids and the impact it's hard you realise what it's done for so many other to do with the club and everyone who has come before us. 

"They have always talked about hanging around one extra year to try and get that championship and were never able to do it, but for us to achieve that last year was pretty incredible. I probably still don’t have the correct words to describe that feeling."

Being there to watch remarkable growth of Rockingham

What those championship successes of last year signalled was just how far the Flames have come.

While the women's team did achieve great success under the coaching of Ryan Petrik and with Sami Whitcomb among the stars with them winning championships in 2014, 2015 and 2019, the club was still on tenterhooks. 

However, under the leadership of Warren Boucaut and with a bevy of support staff who worked tirelessly to turn the club into a power on and off the court, the Flames is an unrecognisable organisation to the one Godfrey started his career with.

"When I first started watching SBL as a kid, it was when the Wildcats were massively popular in the 90s and we used to get a fair crowd come down to attend SBL games," he said. 

"I fondly remember those days then it was almost all of a sudden that when I started to get involved, the crowds just diminished and it was almost just like your parents watching. 

"For it to come full circle and for me to be on that ride, and take that full circle journey and now be playing for the Flames where we've brought all that energy back, and pack out the place, and you're almost the talk of Rockingham with everyone talking about the Flames. 

"It's really cool to be a part of it and just to come full circle from what it was as a spectator to my early years of playing, and now it's almost the destination club. It's pretty cool to see everything that the Flames have been through from the challenging times to the juggernaut that we are now."

The hard work to get Flames to where they are

Not only do they have double the seating capacity on their home floor, but regularly those stands are full, the game night atmosphere is incredible and you can't argue with the success on the floor.

While the transformation has been remarkable, it's taken an enormous amount of work and Godfrey has taken great pride in seeing it all take place.

"There's a couple of people who are the common denominator in all of what has happen and I guess it's Waz who was the one that was the driver for everything with the help of other people," Godfrey said.

"He put some things in place and has had to challenge a lot of human behaviour of the club to try and steer it on this right pathway that we're on now. You look at the women's program and they had a pretty good thing going with Petrik their coach and now for him to flip to the men's, to do what he's done with us over the past couple of years has really just set the standard. 

"You can just get fortunate with a few names in the community and the first one that comes to mind is when Greg first started playing for us. He took a chance to come to a club and try to help start that process of turning us into what we are now. The club invested in him and a couple of other local guys which helped to set the standard for what it is."

How much fun is this team of 2023 to play on

While the transformation of the Flames off the court over the past 15 years has been amazing, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot if the product on the floor wasn’t backing it up.

Rockingham for the most part has always been a competitive team in Godfrey's career and regularly in the playoffs, but competing for a championship has only seriously started to happen since Petrik has taken the helm as coach.

The Flames reached the Grand Final of 2021 and then last year, broke through to win a first men's title and then went on to claim the National Championship eight days later.

You can make a case they are an improved team on the back of what they are doing so far this year with the eight-game winning streak to start the season while putting up 107 points a game.

Adding import Jeremy Combs to a team still featuring Devondrick Walker, Marshall Nelson, Tom Jervis and mainstays Justin Beard, Travis Durnin, Callum Beard along with Godfrey mean that he might have never had more fun on a basketball floor.

"It's incredible right now. Obviously there's an element of skill involved but for us it's really important to ensure we do this as a group," Godfrey said.

"Devondrick had 50 on the weekend and those points are nice and he's an incredible player, but it's the steps that we need to take as a group to get to those kind of results. 

"As incredible as a player as Devondrick is, he probably doesn’t do that without the system we have and without the people feeding him the ball, and he recognised that to us guys after the game. 

"If your star player appreciates his teammates, then in the locker room we are doing the right things to ensure that we are coming collectively as a group to produce the best product on the floor. 

"We are probably better than we were last year and I still don’t think we're at our capacity and nor do we want to be yet because there's still so long to go. But we're certainly accountable to each other, we're all great mates and we're all happy to call each other out for the common good of working towards that championship. 

"The key thing for this year consistency and having as many guys healthy and available where it wasn’t always the case for us last year. With the way we're playing at the moment it's been good, but we have lengths to go before we can look towards the championship."

Any chance of chasing down Salinas' 500 games

On the same weekend that Godfrey reaches his 300-game milestone, perhaps his greatest rival over his career and fellow veteran guard Seb Salinas will play his 500th game in the league spread over the Senators, Wolves and now at the Eastern Suns.

Godfrey isn’t sure if he could keep playing long enough to add 200 more games to his career, but while he's able to juggle basketball with family and work, and while he's still contributing and playing well, he sees no end in sight just yet.

"I guess it depends on if the league wants to have more COVID years where they take away games even though we play them, but that's an incredible achievement from Seb," Godfrey said.

"He's a guy who has been a catalyst of the league for such a long time and 500 games is amazing. He's a really good guy to go along with that and definitely the best of luck to him, but for me, at this stage I just am taking it year by year. 

"Games played certainly doesn’t come into consideration in deciding if I'm playing the next year or not, obviously there's a lot to life as you get a little bit older. 

"But as long as I can juggle work, family and I still enjoy the sport, and I'm not taking anyone's position away, then I'll keep ticking along. For however long that is, we'll find out."

 

Watch the Flames take on the Perth Redbacks from 8:00pm AWST live via NBL1.com.au or the NBL1 App.