Time for excuses lapses
VICE- captain Mia Murray says the Townsville Fire can’t waste time making excuses as they look to bounce back from a horror round in the WNBL.
The Fire were flying high just a week ago as the competition’s only unbeaten team, but such is the nature of the condensed schedule that they have now slipped to fourth after back- to- back losses.
Townsville were sluggish in the first quarter as they went down to Sydney at home last Thursday, but they barely fired a shot in a disappointing road loss to Dandenong on Sunday to round out a winless double.
Defence was a concern for the Fire during the pre- season and those communication breakdowns cruelled their chances against the Rangers, who grabbed a whopping 18 offensive rebounds.
Townsville added a few new faces to the squad this season, particularly in their second unit, but Murray insisted they have had more than enough time to work on combinations.
“I don’t think that can be an excuse anymore. Other groups are fairly new as well,” she said.
“We’ve had the bulk of our group for nearing a couple of months now and we’re in the thick of the season. It’s just something that has to improve otherwise we’ll be facing a third loss.
“There’s a few statistics that are telling factors. We gave up 20 offensive boards ( against Dandenong), which I think is more a communication thing.
“They came in fired up and they executed their offence really well, particularly towards the back end of the game.
“That’s where we had our defensive communication breakdowns as well.”
It won’t get any easier for the Fire this weekend as they travel to Canberra on Friday night before hosting the topof- the- table Melbourne Boomers on Sunday.
Townsville have already beaten Canberra once this season and they are the only side to overcome the Liz Cambageled Boomers.
But Murray expected both sides to make adjustments from their first encounters and she urged her Fire teammates to pull out all the stops on the training court this week.
“Canberra won’t be the same team that we saw a couple of weeks ago so they’ll be desperate to beat us on their home floor,” she said.
“You never want to be playing catch- up basketball, especially with the quality of teams that are in the league this year. They can really punish you.
“Unfortunately we’ve lost two on the trot now, but we haven’t really got much time to dwell on it.
“We have to fix those things really quickly and take it to Canberra.”