Tornadoes coach Richard Dickel all but accepted the clash was gone by half-time after conceding 53 points to trail by 26 off a dominant 28-12 Supercats second term.

Sara Blicavs terrorised her former SEABL side, scoring 17 points in the first half on her way to a game-high 28.

“Look, they shot really well and we didn’t come out with the right intensity,” Dickel admitted afterwards.

“If I am being honest about things, we were never going to play it out to lose by 15 or 20 points even.

“We were either going to get right back into the game or it had the potential to blow out.

“So we had to try and take some risks to get back into it.

“We still played pretty well in the second half; I’m pretty happy considering.

“But their shooting percentages and getting totally out rebounded really just killed us in that first half.”

The Tornadoes were down 29-16 off the boards that had included just an alarming two offensive rebounds.

The lead would also blow out to 61-27 in the third quarter before the visitors stemmed the bleeding.

Dickel didn’t mince words where things went wrong.

“We struggled with the physicality close to the basket tonight,” Dickel said.

“We are pretty good at scoring in the paint and we shot like 20 to 30 per cent for the whole game.

“So from my perspective that has a big say for us – we need to be well up, and they shot around 60 per cent.”

Power forward Tayla Roberts led with 22 points and 12 of her side’s 32 rebounds.

Laurens Nicholson and Mansfield scored 15 and 11 points each in tireless efforts.

The Torns return home on Saturday night to face Nunawading with “no excuses”.

“You can look at everything until you’re black and blue in the face,” Dickel said. 

“They played very well and we didn’t play up to our potential.

“We have a saying back in New Zealand: we flush the dunny and we move on.

“We’ve now got to go home and win one tomorrow.”