BENDIGO Bank Spirit coach Simon Pritchard is wary of a winless Sydney University Flames ahead of Friday's night's week three encounter at Bendigo Stadium.
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The Flames possess one of the best starting fives in the WNBL, packing penty of firepower through Rio Olympian Leilani Mitchell, imports Asia Taylor and Jennifer Hamson and former Spirit star Belinda Snell.
Pritchard believed the Flames win-loss record was not indicative of their talent.
"They can score from the perimeter, they can score from inside and have a good balanced group - they worry me," he said.
"But if our defence comes through strong as it has and we did a good job on Hamson, Mitchell and Taylor, we should be able to keep them to a score low enough where we can score 70 points.
"They're coming off two narrow losses, but they have been in both games late in the game, so they are right around the mark."
It will be a testing weekend for the Spirit, who also play Melbourne Boomers on Sunday.
The weekend's encounters are part of a stretch of four games in 10 days for the Spirit, who play Dandenong Rangers and Townsville Fire on the road the following weekend game.
Two-time championship centre Gabe Richards said the side was looking forward to the challenge of finding out just where the team stood over the next two weeks.
"It's the start of a pretty intense period for us, with our first road trip thrown in," she said.
"It's vital to get the wins at home when you can, and we have obviously set ourselves up to start the season well.
"We need to continue that - there's nothing better than winning on your home court."
Richards has been used in an unfamiliar role off the bench as she regains full match fitness after undergoing plantar fascia surgery midway through the netball season.
The two-time WNBL All-Star has shown no signs of discomfort in the first two games and is averaging 6.5 points ad three rebounds in restricted court-time.
"I went to see the surgeon the week before our season started and he was really happy with it and surprised I was back playing," Richards said.
"I'm easing it and obviously my match fitness wasn't there at the start of the season - I only played the one practice match and had an interrupted off season playing netball.
"It's been very important to ease into it and Simon has been very good at managing minutes with the whole group.”
"He doesn't want anyone breaking down coming February-March, that's no good to us."
