Bonding time ahead for Sirens | Canterbury Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Canterbury

The Christchurch Sirens' alarming schedule of six away matches in a row this month may have some blessings for the new team in the Australian WNBL.

The Sirens started their history in the Aussie league with a 47-72 home loss to Townsville last Friday that was a much closer game than the score hints.

Coach Leigh Gooding had a nightmare preparation for the Sirens' debut his core of Tall Ferns away, American import Lamisha Augustine off the plane on Thursday, and Donna Wilkins back from overseas only four hours before the match. Typically, though, the combative Wilkins was the Sirens MVP and top scorer.

After that start Gooding could be forgiven if he's dreading this month's schedule which sees the Sirens make three trips across the Tasman for doubleheaders, starting with a trip to Canberra to play the Australian Institute of Sport on Friday and champions Capitals on Saturday.

However, the time together on the trips should be a crash course in team bonding for the Sirens.

"They're tough, road trips, especially when you've prepared like we have," he said.

"But the good thing about it is we'll be playing some games together and playing and training together. Hopefully the transition getting to know each other is quicker."

Against Townsville the Sirens fought back from an early 19-point deficit to close to within three in the third quarter before letting the Fire get away again, and then let them blow out the lead again in the last quarter.

That could be forgiven for a first-up match given the limited time the Sirens had had on the court together.

However, more worrying for Gooding was the shooting.

"It's hard to pinpoint exactly what the issue was," he said. "We definitely need to find some shooters among the group. We're not over-run with pure shooters."

The players in the group needed to be contributing eight to 10 points a game, not just one or two.

Looking at this weekend's opponents, Gooding said the AIS players were in about their third year as a group, and AIS always had "three or four 6ft 5" players, so they'd be bigger across the board than the Sirens. The Capitals will be even tougher they've won the last two championships, had not changed much from 2006, and would be fired up after losing to Sydney.

The Sirens sold 894 seats for their opening match. While they might be a little disappointed not to have more, this compares well with the gates in Australia, and in the tighter confines of Cowles Stadium when they move there for their home games next month, it could produce a daunting atmosphere for visitors.