Sunshine Coast Lightning have taken a strong look inward after a disappointing 9-goal defeat at the hands of the Queensland Firebirds on the weekend.
A 23 – 37 first half had Lightning on the back foot early on and despite the team’s best efforts in the 3rd quarter, the Queensland derby fell the way of the Firebirds.
While the loss hurt, Head Coach Kylee Byrne said the players’ response this week has instilled confidence for the back half of the season.
“A game like we had on the weekend can sometimes be a really great learning,” Byrne said.
“We’ve had a really hard look at ourselves and identified some different areas that we need to be better at.
“Areas like the intensity, how we are communicating to each other, what our warm up was.”
The team did not shy away from their shortcomings in Sunday’s match and instead have used the game as motivation to drive improvement.
“What I ‘ve been proud of so far this week is we’ve looked back on the game and the players have held themselves accountable,” she said.
“We’ve adjusted what we’ve needed to and have hit the training court really well so far.”
Byrne said the team now must focus on returning to the Lightning style that has provided success so far this season.
“We knew the kind of style they were going to play,” she said.
“Instead of playing our style and doing what we have done well to get our wins up this year, we went away from that.
“We became cautious and just apprehensive with the ball and didn’t release it.
“We let them dominate us early.”
The second half comeback saw Lightning reduce the margin to 6 goals by the end of the third term.
Byrne said it wasn’t until the dying minutes of the game that she accepted that there was not time for her side to level the scores.
“We were able to finish with some really fast ball,” she said.
“There were quite a few highlights for us in how we scored goals and we just need to do that more consistently.”
Sunshine Coast Lightning now look to a heated match against Giants Netball in Sydney where a top two ladder position is on offer, before heading into the mid-season bye round.
