Worthing Thunder coach Gary Smith wants the team to regain focus and put last Saturday’s defeat to London Leopards to bed.

Turnovers have been a major problem with Thunder turning the ball over exactly 54 times in their last two home games, something that Smith wants to stop now: “It’s not good enough and it needs to stop,” he said. “Our guys are attempting flashy and really ambitious passes and that doesn’t win you ball games. Our last two homes against Brixton and Leopards, we’ve been careless and sloppy, but I know we can turn it around.”

His team host Bradford Dragons this Saturday and Smith, speaking directly after last week’s game against Leopards is confident that after back-to-back defeats against the BBL-elect side, they can regroup and get back to winning ways, but more importantly, stay in the hunt for a home playoff spot.

“No doubt, the loss against Leopards now has to be erased,” Smith said. “It’s a new week, a chance to regroup and a chance to get back to winning ways against Bradford, and I know we will be up to the task, we have good players on our roster and we want to keep the top-half finish dream going.

“We know that Bradford have a good squad, they’ve beaten us already this year, and I haven’t forgotten that. Our roster has changed since then, we are much bigger now. All we have to do is keep our turnovers down and just play a smart team game every second that game clock is ticking.”

With Vinnie Darpino out of action for another three weeks, young Jack Sunderland has seen his playing time grow, and he is no doubt embracing the role, scoring 11 points in Saturday’s defeat, seven of those were scored in the second quarter. Sunderland feels that if plays are run correctly, and if they can get open looks, this Saturday’s clash with Radford will be a lot different than last Saturday’s game.

“I just feel that we know we are one of the most talented teams, if not the most talented team in the league, but sometimes struggle to play together as a unit,” Sunderland said.

“The one thing we hardly ever seem to get is easy looks at the basket, and need to run our sets the whole way through so we can get some easy points, hopefully we can achieve that and get back to winning ways.”

Saturday’s game at home to Bradford tips-off at 7.30pm.