Bold Molloy keen for another crack come finals

MELBOURNE hasn’t found a way to overcome the Townsville Fire during the regular season, but coach Guy Molloy says he would welcome another showdown in the WNBL finals.

The Fire sealed a 3- 0 clean sweep over the preseason title favourites at Townsville Sta- dium on Thursday night as they held off a fierce challenge from the Boomers in the fourth quarter.

It’s an all- too- familiar story for the Melbourne side which has led Townsville in the second half of all three clashes this season only to be outplayed down the stretch.

The Boomers were always going to find it tough without suspended centre Liz Cambage, but Molloy believed his side had to learn to match the Fire’s intensity on every play.

“It’s a thing we talk about playing in this venue a lot of the time that we have to continue to concentrate your way through a possession,” he said.

“We’ve got lots of young players that are getting valuable lessons because they’ll play good defence for 23 seconds and then forget to box out. Those plays kill you so it’s frustration in a sense because we’ve been here before and I felt like we were prepared to say ‘ we’re going to complete through those plays’, but they still cost us again.”

The Fire and the Boomers are currently ranked first and fourth on the ladder respect- ively so another meeting in Townsville during the playoffs seems likely. Molloy was confident Melbourne could learn from previous mistakes against the Fire.

“I said to the team, let’s hope we’re back here and playing in a final. We’ve got to really prove at some point that we can overcome them,” he said.