But winning coach Ben Rush played down the 76-52 victory, calling the work on court behind the one-sided affair as little more than “a good, solid job”.

Launceston got out to a 22-9 break at quarter-time and finished the last term with a 25-14 stretch.

Rush had pointed to the Sabres missing sidelined captain Brittany Smart 24 hours after its two-point win over Hobart.

American Jasmine Gill was also struggling from the effects of jetlag only 48 hours after arriving in Australia.

“She was stuffed,” Rush said, “and they were just undermanned.”

“We fought a team that was a little below on their best.

“We played some good solid basketball for enough parts of the game to get a good win. But we’ve still got plenty of work to get better.”

The Melburnians showed good fight in the second quarter to reduce the deficit to nine points at half-time.

Rush, in some part, took the blame for the Sabres’ comeback after blistering first term.

“We’ve had some up-and-down starts and this was a really strong one,” he said.

“I probably subbed too quickly and disrupted the group on the court too fast, and allowed them a little momentum back into the game.”

Tayla Roberts continued to top the Torns’ scoreboard with 23 points.

But Laurens Mansfield and Nicholson pushed out 16 points each with nine and seven rebounds respectively.

Rush said the litmus test would be the next two road games off the island.

But he refused to make any bold predictions since a big first loss at Hobart dented the side’s confidence.

“I don’t really know to be honest,” he said.

“Do I think we can be a finals teams? For sure.

“There’s a lot of basketball to be played and our job is to keep practicing each day, each week and get better.

“We’ve had a good three wins in a row and we want to protect our home court – that’s really important to us.”