Players face character test after humiliation
AFTER her team was belted by Sydney in Saturday’s semifinal series opener, Townsville Fire coach Claudia Brassard joked maybe the team should watch NFL champions the New England Patriots.
But she was deadly serious when she acknowledged the defending WNBL champions face a serious test of their character after the humbling 42- point defeat.
The league’s decision to extend the semi- finals from a single game to three matches this year has come at the right time for the Fire, who must win Friday’s game two at Townsville.
Much like the Patriots, who recovered from 25 points down to beat Atlanta in this month’s Superbowl, the Fire must dig deep to keep the trophy.
“We were down 50 at one point I think. Of course that’s going to rock our confidence,” Brassard said.
“It’ll be a test of our character. How can we bounce back from this?
“Maybe we have to go watch some New England Patriots. Next week’s a new week. We can be thankful it’s a threegame series.”
For the second straight week the Fire’s defence was badly exposed in the 111- 69 loss, one of the most lopsided finals games in WNBL history.
A week after ordering greater accountability from her players after a 90- 83 home loss to Canberra, a superb Flames did whatever they wanted offensively, shooting 55 per cent from the field.
“There was a sign of it coming last week when we gave up 90 to Canberra,” Brassard said.
“In the last two weeks we’ve given up 200 points. No one’s going to win a championship playing that kind of defence.
“That is the frustration. We e spoke about it in the locker room: We play tougher de- fence against each other at training than we do against the other team.”
American import Amy Kame said they must heed the tough lessons but also avoid dwelling on it.
“When you play sports you have to have a short memory and we have to go into this week with confidence because if we don’t, the same thing could happen,” she said.
“Obviously we’ll fix a lot of things and our leaders ( Suzy Batkovic and Mia Murray) did a good job tonight, we just have to pick up the slack.”
Truth be told, not many teams would have come close to a clinical Sydney.
Flames coach Cheryl Chambers’ job this week is to ensure her team doesn’t slip into a false sense of security.
“If you’re going to have a superb game, it’s not a bad time to have it in a final,” Chambers said.
“But I understand Townsville have been in grand finals and won them. I know next Friday is going to be a different ball game for sure.” DefensiveDe fix: page 16