Perth Lynx owner Craig Hutchison talks Han Xu, stadium moves and WNBL grand final against Townsville Fire

Perth Lynx owner Craig Hutchison credits a commitment to making blockbuster decisions as the key to his team’s championship campaign, saying Thursday night’s WNBL grand final against Townsville is a reward for being prepared to take risks. The Lynx will play the first game of the best-of-three series in Townsville and then return home to play at the Perth High Performance Centre on Sunday in what is on the verge of being a sold out game and the largest crowd in club history. Perth haven’t won a championship since 1992 but this will be their third grand final in five seasons. Hutchison told corporate partners and former players last season that he wanted to play every game at the Perth High Performance Centre, but it wasn’t financially viable to do so. Then, the club made a dramatic change, committing to play at the bigger stadium, signing Chinese superstar Han Xu and doing whatever was required to win. “They have been needle moving decisions. It’s the blockbuster theory of do the big things well,” Hutchison told The West Australian. “It was courage and a deep breath. Sometimes you’ve just got to go. You take a giant breath and go ‘this team is really talented, this club could be something but we need a circuit breaker.’ “So we committed early. At the end of last season we said it was going to be hard yards and it was going to be more difficult commercially initially, but it would be the thing that transforms our club. If you’ve got a great product, you have to put it at a great venue. “So we booked the venue and made the decision to go and get Han.” The Lynx already had a star studded team that included co-captains Anneli Maley and Amy Atwell, reigning MVP Ally Wilson and veteran Alex Ciabattoni. But adding a 211cm megastar like Xu helped to transform the club. Xu’s commitments overseas meant she couldn’t arrive in Australia until the ninth match of the season. Perth signed American Brianna Turner as the short term replacement, but played with the same tactics they had planned for Xu. That came with risks and the Lynx were 5-3 when Xu made her debut, but they have since won 15 of their 17 games. Hutchison said nothing summed up how committed the owners, staff, players and coach were about making blockbuster moves more than signing a superstar while knowing she would miss a chunk of the season. “It was a very unique chance to grow the club and grow the code. This helps to grow the league, so our team were all-in straight away that we would find a way to make things work,” he said. “We knew Han was a gun but she’s been a better player than we could have imagined and a better person than we ever contemplated. All of those worlds aligned. “But the coach deserves all of the credit because we were going to have 25 per cent of the season without her and that could have been really disruptive.”