Queensland Firebirds coach Megan Anderson has put it on her players to make amends for their disappointing 13-goal loss to the Adelaide Thunderbirds on Wednesday night.
In their second consecutive away game in four days the Firebirds were no match for the Thunderbirds who recorded a 68-55 victory in front of their home crowd at Netball SA Stadium.
Anderson admitted the performance was below standard for her team, though acknowledged the Thunderbirds for the way they played.
“It was a very strong performance,” The Firebirds coach said.
“I think they had great centre pass conversion, great turnover conversion and I think they just put pressure on us right from the start, so we were always chasing.
“They were very good tonight, and we just didn’t match it with them unfortunately.
“It is always good to start a game scoring your own centre passes and we didn’t do that a couple of times in a row and definitely put doubt in our minds, and I think we just didn’t come back from that.”
After a week away from home, the Firebirds will fly back to Brisbane on Thursday as they prepare to bounce back with a win in front of their passionate home crowd on Saturday.
With the next match being the Queensland derby, The Battle of the Bruce, against the Sunshine Coast Lighting – the stage is well and truly set for the Firebirds to respond.
A win will well and truly keep their finals hopes alive, and Anderson is confident that will motivate the Firebirds enough to return to the winners list.
“We know we can beat anybody when we execute our game, so we’ve just got to have that belief that we can do that in the last four games,” Anderson emphasised.
“We haven’t got too long to dwell on it, we have two days and then we play our next game, so we’ve just got to deal with it and move on, and make sure we execute next game.
“It is so good that we’ve got a game at home now, it’ll be good to come back to the purple fans.
“But we just have to be ready to show up on the day and put in a really solid performance across the court.”
The Firebirds and Lighting will go head-to-head in the Battle of the Bruce at Nissan Arena on Saturday with the game starting at 5pm.
