The Lakers got off to a strong start, kicking with the wind to finish with five goals in the first term.

The Storm had the wind advantage in the second quarter but failed to capitalise on it, despite tightening up in the defensive end after the first term.

Storm coach Krystal Cameron said the result was unexpected.

“It is a different feel but I think all of us got a bit of a shock,” she said.

“What happened was they got off to a quick start in the first quarter and there was no coming back from that kind of deficit.”

The team made some changes at quarter time with Cameron impressed at how the team fought the game out despite the slow start.

“After the first quarter we tightened up defensively but we still had trouble scoring,” she said.

“They were just doing the basics better, we will speak to them about acting, rather than reacting during the week, as they were letting the Lakers’ players get to the ball first a lot of the time.

“Once that starts happening, it is hard to play catch up football.

“We only played them once last year, so we had not had a good look at them and they caught us off guard a bit in the first term.”

Cameron said while the result was disappointing, the team will continue to work on little things at training and is confident the team will bounce back.

“I think a lot of it was psychological, I had a chat to some of them individually at quarter time and they said a lot of it was because the Lakers are a bigger team than us,” she said.

“I do not think it is a case of changing too much, just working on our belief and systems and understanding that when teams do blow us out of the water early on, we are not necessarily out of the game.

“We will learn a lot from the game, we already know they have the skills and the ability and it will be about re-enforcing that this week.”

Cameron said there were a few standouts across the four quarters.

“Ayesha Nicholson stood up in the back line and stemmed the flow down there,” she said.

“And Renee Soultis was another who stood up early in the game.”

The Storm will be back in action in round four against North Ballarat City at the Northern Oval on Sunday.