It was an amazing turn-around in form from both teams, given the Scorchers had slumped to defeat against the bottom-placed Glebe Magic and the Panthers had annihilated the second-placed Sutherland Sharks in the previous round.

The Scorchers were missing four regular players missing through injury on the weekend but head coach Leon Hine had obviously found the correct words at mid-week training.

The home team were focussed, pushing the highly-fancied Panthers from the outset and trailing narrowly (17-15) at the first break in play.

The Scorchers hit the front in the second term and would never give up that advantage, leading the Panthers by a tantalisingly close margin throughout the remainder of the game and eventually grabbing a sixpoint win.

Both teams struggled to score from the perimeter all night, with the stiff rings at the venue restricting the scoring potency of the regular sharp-shooters from both sides.

The most telling feature of the game was undoubtedly the outstanding man-to-man defence of the Scorchers, with every man on the roster playing to his full potential and constantly frustrating the normally unflappable Panthers into errors.

The Panthers woes were compounded by two injuries during the game, with sweet-shooting guard Steve Gavrilovic rolling his ankle during the first quarter but playing on through the discomfort, whilst key big man Ben Hawkesley was fouled heavily at the start of the

third quarter and could not continue in the game.

Hawkesley has since been ruled out for the rest of the season with a fractured elbow.

``I don't think we were mentally prepared for how well the Scorchers would play tonight,'' Panthers coach Jeff Cooper said.

``We were often one-two plays ahead of ourselves on offence but they were the better team on the night and deserved their win''.