Step inside the stadium in Traralgon and you see Melbourne jerseys everywhere. No real surprise, right? It is a Boomers home game.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Except they aren't all Boomers jerseys. They're Melbourne jerseys of the Jade variety.
The Canberra Capitals hope their co-captain's Traralgon homecoming can swing the support in their favour when they face the Boomers at the Gippsland Regional Indoor Sports Stadium on Sunday.
"I remember last year we were down there, people in [Jade] Melbourne jerseys everywhere. It's an away game, but it really isn't," Capitals guard Nicole Munger said.
"It's pretty cool. She gets to play in front of her family and all of her friends, and we get a lot of Caps supporters. It's great for us, great for her, it's going to be very exciting."
Melbourne is averaging 17.3 points and 9.8 assists per game amid a stellar start to the season, but her biggest task is leading Canberra to a breakthrough win.
The Capitals now face an unbeaten Boomers outfit buoyed by the impressive form of United States import Jordin Canada, but an undersized Canberra side hits the road confident they match up well against a genuine championship contender.
![Jade Melbourne will return home. Picture by Gary Ramage Jade Melbourne will return home. Picture by Gary Ramage](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/36vwtM5n3dmMVgNPycRBEHz/f0091431-5b44-4316-8315-ca3856eb1277.jpg/r680_173_4667_2293_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
"We're really excited. We do think we have some good match-ups, we really like to create chaos on defence and offence," Munger said.
"Hopefully we can do that and stun them a bit. It's a league this year [in which] anyone can beat anyone. We're not going in saying anything about their win-loss record and our win-loss record, we're going in ready to compete and come away with the dub [win].
"We're continuing to show up for each other and do it together. We know we're capable of it. We've seen glimpses. Now making it a consistent 40-minute effort instead of patches, hat's going to be our biggest and next consistency goal."