Claudia Brassard saw plenty of areas to work on with a tough second half in a first Tasmania Jewels loss last Thursday but she's already looking forward to this weekend as they play their first WNBL game in Launceston on Saturday.
After such a memorable occasion first up the previous Thursday night beating the Geelong Venom at a sold out MyState Bank Arena in their first ever WNBL game, last Thursday the going was a little tougher for the Jewels on the road to the Southside Melbourne Flyers.
With Keely Froling out injured, her replacement Mikaela Ruef also only playing 4:39 when her night was done after a heavy knock, and with Madina Okot yet to arrive and Taylor Mole also sidelined, the Jewels just ran out of gas in the second half.
The Flyers outscored them 46-31 after half-time for the eventual 91-77 victory with Brassard seeing some obvious areas that the Jewels need to work on especially at the defensive end.
"I think it was disappointing on our behalf and we certainly weren’t happy with our defensive effort," Brassard said.
"I thought we had several breakdowns particularly in that second half and that kind of cost us the game.
"That drives that scoreboard pressure and shots were becoming a little tighter for us, and we just need to get a little more work in defensively, stick to our rules and get that system down pat. It's not quite where it needs to be yet."
The improvements that Brassard is looking for as they prepare to play an undefeated Sydney Flames team this Saturday in Launceston isn’t purely defensive either, she wants her team to continue to be working on their fitness.
Some of that is purely based on the personnel available and unavailable right now, but Brassard does know if they hope to hand Sydney their first defeat of the season that they will need to put in a strong four-quarter showing.
"We talk a lot around just getting better every game and every day at training, and trying to stack those days but sometimes you end up going a little bit backwards, like we did in this game," Brassard said.
"We're coming into a really hot Sydney team and we've played them twice in the pre-season and they beat us both times by 30.
"So we know we need to get better, we know we need to get fitter and I don’t think we're fit enough. Sydney are certainly way fitter than we are so it's going to be a tough second half if we can't get some stops."
The firsts will continue for the Jewels across their first three games in the WNBL having shone in that first home game in Hobart, and winning their first ever game, before playing their first ever away game last Thursday, and suffering a first loss.
Now for the first time they will be playing a home game at the Silverdome in Launceston on Saturday afternoon with Brassard looking forward to the experience and to back up the JackJumpers playing the Sydney Kings in an NBL battle on Friday night in the northern city too.
"It's a big weekend in Tassie with the men playing on the Friday and then we're playing on the Saturday up in Launceston," Brassard said.
"We've had great support all across the island and up north as well so we're really looking forward to being amongst that community up there, and taking the Jewels and Jackies basketball up there.
"I think it's going to be really exciting and we're hoping that the crowd gets behind us just as they did in Hobart."
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