Brassard laments a lack of Fire in belly

FIRE coach Claudia Brassard has slammed her side’s lack of urgency in Saturday’s 86- 71 loss to Dandenong which saw Townsville slump to a winless weekend in the WNBL.

The Fire had a point to prove against Dandenong after a slow start cost them last Thursday night’s 66- 63 home loss to Sydney, but they were never really in the contest.

The visitors failed to match Dandenong’s intensity as they were dominated on rebounds 53- 36, while Townsville’s shooting was again off the mark as they trailed at every break.

Brassard ( pictured) couldn’t pinpoint the exact cause of the Fire’s form slump given they were leading the competition just a week ago, but she felt there was a definite lack of focus against Dandenong.

“It’s just the mindset of the girls, they need to come out and be ready to play,” she said.

“It was a lack of effort and a lack of hustle. Hustle’s going to beat talent every time and they ( Dandenong) were chasing everything, they were desperate.

“We spoke about it right after the game. I don’t think we executed our scout very well at all. We knew that we wouldn’t get an opportunity to train before we played Dandenong so the scout was done outdoors in a park and on video.

“That’s going g to happen appen probably more than once this season so they need to be ready for that and be able to translate that.

“That’s about being mentally tough and ready to take instruction and then execute it on the floor. We did that really poorly.”

Fire skipper Suzy Batkovic was one of the few shining lights against the Rangers as she finished with 23 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, two blocks and two steals.

But Batkovic was still left t frustrated by the team’s performance, highlighting Dandenong’s 18 offensive rebounds as proof that the Fire hadn’t stuck to their game plan.

“Not everybody was boxing out. There were always those lapses and unfortunately if even one person d doesn’t’ t b box out that’s going to happen,” Batkovic said after the match.

“That’s an effort thing. We get told every training session to do it and we were exposed by not getting it done.

“That’s something we’ve got to get done otherwise we’re going to end up dropping more games because of rebounding.”

Townsville face another gruelling weekend as they hit the road to face Canberra on Friday night before returning home against the top- of- thetable Melbourne Boomers on Sunday afternoon.

Brassard said the Fire already had to wear a few “home truths” from the video review and the coach believed how they respond to that adversity could define their season.

“I guess there’s no choice. We know the season’s quick like that so we need to refocus,” Brassard said.

“The character of a team is how you turn it around and how you respond and we need a response.”