The Bathurst Goldminers will need to rediscover their killer instincts again if they are to avoid a hat-trick of loses when they take to the court against the Sutherland Sharks away tomorrow night.

After easily rising to the top of the women’s division one Youth League competition with seven wins from seven games, which included huge victories against Parramatta Wildcats (131-53) and Hornsby Spiders (133-21), the ’Miners have crashed back to earth with defeats in their last two outings.

Against the Sydney Comets Bathurst were pushed to their limits, going down in a one point thriller 63-62.

Last Saturday the ’Miners, desperately tried to bounce back to their winning ways, but were not prepared to take on the Illawarra Hawks, going down 79-61.

A dreadful first quarter saw Bathurst easily beaten at both ends of the court as they gave away easy fouls in defence and failed to register simple baskets in attack.

Bathurst Goldminers coach Paul Masters said the two defeats were a huge wake up call for his team who may have already been thinking about the season’s end.

“We have certainly been missing our good starts [in the last two games],” he said.

“I guess we have been rocking up thinking we would win and crashing, we are obviously not as hot as we think we are.

“You have really got to turn up to play right from the start.

“Last week we played a fairly talented side that dropped down from the Australian Basketball Association last year and are very strong,” he added.

“But that is what we wanted, a few hard games.”

Masters, unable to travel away from the team for the match against Illawarra, said he would once again be absent again for tomorrow’s match against the Sharks.

The Goldminers mentor said against Sutherland a number of players would need to step up with Haylee Lepaio, Rachel Murray and Olivia Paterson all missing with Western State League commitments

“I’ll be looking for Clare Thompson and Sarah Murray to stand strong with their [Sutherland’s] bigs pretty strong,” Masters said.

“It certainly going to be a test for us and one that we hopefully get through.”

Masters said even though the ’Miners defeated Sutherland 86-60 in round four, it would be a completely different Sharks outfit on Saturday to the one they faced back in early April.

“So far we had been going through the season with things going our and now hopefully the loses will get us going again,” he said “Last time we played them we beat them fairly easily, but it saying that they did have a few bad referee decisions.

“They are definitely going to be out to get us this weekend.”

The Bathurst Goldminers will take on the Sutherland Sharks away tomorrow 3pm.