After a one-year hiatus, the Sheffield Hatters returned to the WBBL last year with a bang and stormed to third place in the Championship standings.

Armed with a talented and committed British core, the Hatters turned heads from the get-go last season as their intense play on both ends of the floor saw them leave a mark on the rest of the league in the opening stages of the year.

We caught up with one of the Hatters’ many returning stars, Hannah Shaw, ahead of the new campaign, to discuss her thoughts on how the team’s first season back in the WBBL panned out and look to the year ahead.

“We lost a few winnable games last season, which was disappointing, but we lost three of our imports during the year as well and in our first year back in the league, with a lot of other things going on around that, to finish the season in the top three and in the play-offs was pretty good!

“I really enjoy playing for the Hatters, it is a club with such a history – and one of winning at that – but I also grew up playing in Nottingham, so it did feel weird going to a Hatters practice at the start of the season because I’ve always been taught not to like them, basically!

“To be able to play with my best friend, Nikky (Fairley), and to get to play with Helen (Naylor) and Ebony (Horton) and people on the team that I enjoyed being around, it was a really nice experience in my first year at the Hatters.”

“I’m focussing on making sure I don’t take anything for granted.”

With a new season on the horizon, teams are naturally full of confidence as they approach the new campaign. Shaw is an experienced head in the WBBL by now, so she knows only too well how important it is to approach the season in a measured way, but even so she is full of belief that the Hatters are capable of at least matching last season’s success.

“Our expectations are really simple: win as many games as possible. We expect to be in the top two or three in the league and anything below that we’ll feel we’ve under-performed. We’ve returned a lot of our British players, where we had a solid core, and our imports are looking really good.

“Around us, teams are certainly improving and the Caledonia Gladiators look like they’re going to make a bit of a jump this year, for example, but we’re feeling good about returning so many players and feel like it gives us an edge in terms of developing that chemistry we need to be successful.

“We’ve got a lot of players that want to score and can score, so that gives us a lot of confidence. I don’t care about my statistics or how many points I score or anything like that. I just want us to play well and in the right way. I also know that I’m getting on a bit now as well, so I’m focussing on making sure I don’t take anything for granted, because you don’t know how long things can last!”

The Hatters get their season underway on Saturday September 24 as they welcome the Durham Palatinates to All Saints Leisure Centre. You can watch all of Sheffield’s games, and indeed every game from the upcoming WBBL season, live and for free on the WBBL YouTube channel.