The dressing room dust-up that led to a Heat repeat

It began with a dressing room bust-up … and ended with a second-straight title.

A new two-part documentary from cricket.com.au looking at the Brisbane Heat's dual WBBL triumphs across the past two seasons has revealed the shaky foundations upon which their success was originally built, and how an "absolutely hurtful" post-match argument changed the course of the two summers that followed.

A series of candid interviews with key members of those winning Heat squads offer viewers of The Heat Repeat an unprecedented insight into the world of elite women's cricket, and the high-intensity nature of the Rebel Women's Big Bash League.

For the Heat, who had not reached the final in the first three editions of the tournament, the opening match of WBBL|04 lurched from defeat to near total disintegration when they were soundly beaten by the Adelaide Strikers in Melbourne.

In the dressing room afterward, there was a heated confrontation between senior members of the squad, with the crux of the tension not the defeat itself, but the way not out pair Beth Mooney and Kirby Short were viewed as having meekly succumbed to a 36-run defeat.

Prompted by then head coach Peter McGiffin, Australia rep Jess Jonassen brought up the proverbial elephant in the room.

"It was perceived to look a bit selfish, the innings," Jonassen reflected on The Heat Repeat. "Certain decisions that appeared to be made … there wasn't as much urgency as was required for us to actually give it a decent shot.

"To only be two down, chasing that total and falling not many runs short was very disappointing from a group perspective, knowing the quality of hitters we had on the sideline.

"At that time things needed to be said, we needed to realise that wasn't necessarily way we wanted to play moving forward. We wanted to try take the game on, and take the brave option."

Mooney conceded it was an innings in which "nothing was working" but she and Short were forced to defend themselves after the match for taking an approach much of the rest of the squad deemed at odds with how they had planned to play.

"I was like, 'Well, this is gonna be a fun year'," recalled Mooney. "Things get said, perspectives don't get listened to … And when you're feeling emotional, you're quick to judge someone's behaviour and performance and assume without having a conversation about it, and that's pretty much what happened."

For captain Short, it represented a moment for serious self-reflection amid "some pretty brutal honesty from a lot of directions".

"Sitting in that changeroom at Junction (Oval), genuinely questioning what that looked like to my team – for whom I would do anything – was a really challenging moment for me personally," she said.

"To misinterpret two people who are trying to win a game of cricket being selfish, based on your singular lens, was absolutely hurtful."

Dynamic batter Grace Harris recalled Jonassen having the support of the group in challenging her fellow international Mooney, as well as her skipper, Short.

"It was definitely a brutal review (but) it was a review that was needed," Harris said. "I would've been happier if we were eight down (and lost while attacking the target) … the way that we started that season, I was thinking, Nah, we're not going to go very far (in the tournament) here.

"What 'Moons' and Kirby did well was they didn't take it personally – they might've in that moment, but they didn't hold onto it for long.

"I can understand being angry in that moment because there was a lot that was said in that changeroom, and we decided, 'Girls, you can either drag this on for the entire season or we can leave it here, but something needs to change because we cannot show up to another ground and play another game of cricket like that because we will not win anything'."

After what was meant to be a regulation post-match analysis spiralled rapidly out of control, McGiffin and Short made the decision to shift such debriefs to the day after matches, with the intention of removing any emotion from the room.

It was a simple move but one that proved decisive as the Heat made their way through the summer, gradually building winning momentum as they came to better understand each other as people and players, and capitalising on a roster with no shortage of exceptional talent.

Speaking on the documentary, Australia pace bowler Delissa Kimmince, who finished that tournament as the equal leading wicket-taker with 22, attributed no small amount of the team's ultimate success across the next two WBBL campaigns to that difficult dressing-room conversation.

"It had the ultimate effect on our team," Kimmince said. "It allowed us to go on and define how we really wanted to play our games.

"And at the end of the day we got two trophies in the bank."