Rush took a one-point advantage into the last quarter after leading at every change, but would concede 26 points and only score 13 itself, to go down 93 points to 81.

Rush’s preparation for the match was far from ideal given it had been three weeks since its first match, while Saturday night was the Tigers fifth outing.

Co-captain Kristy Rinaldi said it was one that slipped out of the side’s grasp. While she said it was tough to tell how much of an effect the unusual lead-in had, the side would learn from the loss.

“It’s one that slipped away from us, but I also think we had a lot of positives in the game,” Rinaldi said.

“There was a huge improvement on some little things in comparison to Geelong...I think we’re only going to get better.

“We let them have a lot of open shots and they starting to knock those down. Defensively we fell apart and they hit really big shots.”

Rinaldi said there were plenty of posties from the match and felt it was important to keep the result in perspective – that it was only the side’s second game of the season.

“It’ll be good to finally get back into the swing of the season and it felt like that was our first proper game last night even though we’d already played against Geelong. I think there’s a heap of positives, if that was our fifth game then you’d be a bit concerned, but we’ve got a long way to go.”