COACH CALLS ON TOP OF TABLE TOWNSVILLE TO REFOCUS

The Fire flew under the radar for the majority of last season. It was only after the outsiders charged to top spot on the table, that pressure on them to secure somewhat of a surprise championship built. But the players remained calm, claiming the title on the back of 16 straight victories.

The Fire has been made to pay for a recent drop off in performance. Townsville suffered successive defeats for the first the in more than a year, after going down to Adelaide 75-90 at home on Saturday night. It wasn’t the response Coach Shannon Seebohm wanted on the back of a heavy loss to the Boomers in Melbourne.

“Adelaide really stuck it out, fought hard, lifted their intensity and really bullied us out of everything, and on our behalf that’s not good enough. But that’s a worrying sign, we’ve now done this twice in a row and if I’m honest multiple times during the last 5 or 6 games it’s happened to us, so we have some serious stuff to figure out right now.”

He knows his players are more than capable of turning things around against Southside next up. They’ll be going full throttle against each other at training first though.

“We need to make practice more competitive than the games are going to be. We need to get after each other physically and we need to defend each other the way that we’re getting defended in the game, so when we’re playing offence we’re not surprised by that and we’re not getting pushed out of our stuff as easy as we have been.”

The Fire’s season series with the Flyers is tied at one win a piece, with both teams triumphing on their opponent’s court. They’ll face off at the Fire Pit on Saturday night. Tickets can be purchased here.