Tayside Musketeers: all you need to know about the SBC Senior Women newcomers

There will be two new teams in the Senior Women's National League this season as Tayside Musketeers return to the fold in an expanded eight-team competition.

Tayside has been without a side in Senior National League Division One, men or women, since 2017. More recently, Dundee Madsons have enjoyed considerable success as a local league side that reached the senior women's Scottish Cup final and won the Grampian league undefeated in 2025. New head coach Michael Lyall, formerly of that Madsons team, expressed his excitement ahead of the new season.

“It's the first time in a while that we've been able to enter it,” said Lyall. “Musketeers have been about for years and used to have a senior women's team that made Scottish Cup finals and play-off finals, so it's good for us to get back going again, building the pathway and getting Tayside Musketeers back to where they were before. We're trying to provide that longevity and consistency for a female pathway and just getting them through. It's exciting, and it's good steps for the club, so that's what's most important.”

Basketball in the Dundee and Tayside area has had its peaks and troughs. Perth Phoenix were a force at underage level, winning the Scottish Cup at under-16s, while the Musketeers were a strong club in the era when Donnie Macdonald coached the side and Hannah Robb, now playing professionally, came through the ranks. Covid hit the local league scene hard and the club dipped from there. “It's been pretty inconsistent for Tayside over the years,” said Lyall, “but hopefully now we're just starting to get back to where it should be.”

The step up offers the club the chance to cement a full female pathway, something Lyall believes the area has never really had, as well as giving his players the highest level available to them in Scotland.

“For the players we've got, it's that opportunity to play at a higher level and against really good female players,” he said. “Some of them have played against those players since they were under-14, so it must be nice for them to still see those players and know they can compete at that level. And for me as a coach, it's seeing the development of the players. On the court is really good, but seeing that development off the court as well, the friendships they make, that's what's really important.”

Lyall was reluctant to pick out individuals, pointing instead to a team-first approach. “We've had players in the past who needed to score 35 or 40 points a game and were the real stars of that team, but at senior women's level they don't want that anymore. They just want to be part of a team that can all step in,” he said. “The way we've got the offence going, at the end of the game you could have four people on 10-plus points. It relies on multiple options, so we've got a good few people who can put the ball in the basket. They've played local league for the past three years, so I'm just excited for them all to see what it's like and to see how they take it on.”

“We want to compete as much as we possibly can, that's for sure, but some teams are at a level that's tough for us to compete with,” he said. “Regardless of results, we obviously want to aim to win basketball games, but as long as by the end of the season we're better than we were at the start, we've built better relationships, we're better at basketball and we're enjoying the game more, that's the win for me.”

source: Scottish Basketball Podcast