TO characterise Matt Parsons' Cockburn Cougars team of the past two seasons and the words passion, heart and hustle quickly spring to mind. Right now he's not seeing enough of that with the Perry Lakes Hawks and his patience is wearing thin.

It's far from time to panic for Perry Lakes with a 3-4 record after six rounds of the 2017 season with Parsons having made the jump to the Hawks after winning last year's championship with the Cougars.

But last weekend highlighted some things clearly to him that he just isn’t getting enough from enough of the players he expects to for the Hawks to perform the way he wants.

It started with an 18-point loss at Bendat Basketball Centre on Saturday night to the Geraldton Buccaneers.

Anyone can accept a loss if your group responds in the right way and the Hawks had that chance against the Stirling Senators at Warwick Stadium on Monday night.

Considering the Senators had already upset the Hawks in the season-opener as well in a performance full of hustle and heart, there was no excuse for Perry Lakes to not go into the clash ready for what was to come and to be prepared to bounce back.

Parsons also sent a message by starting 17-year-old point guard Mitch Clarke ahead of import Robert Waters. It didn’t deliver the desired response from much of the group with the end result being an 80-69 loss to the Senators.

Again a loss is OK if your team plays the way you expect. But for the Hawks to lose to the Senators largely because of the opponents efforts to win the 50-50 balls, dominate the offensive glass with the game up for grabs and simply because they wanted it more was unacceptable for Parsons.

Week 6 Monday night Men's SBL results 

Particularly considering the hallmark of his Cougars team the last two years was that they outworked and outhustled their opponents while getting full buy in and contribution from the entire playing squad.

That all means that Parsons has full faith that his system works, it's now a matter of getting this Hawks playing group to fit into it and that takes full commitment and effort from every single player.

Again the efforts of Ryan Smith, Ben Purser and Matthew Adekponya can hardly be questioned and nor can what Clarke and Jackson Simkovic are providing.

But Parsons needs more from more of his team.

"We've been playing pretty bad for the last couple of weeks and we've challenged the guys in the areas we think we need to and we've got some responses from a couple of people who might be the lesser knowns of our teams," Parsons said.

"We've had some really good output from Mitchell Clarke who is a 17-year-old kid who gives us hustle and heart.

"Jackson Simkovic has come in and done some really good things, and some of our bigger name guys haven’t really been there the last couple of weeks. We have to fight through that. They are getting a lot of attention out there as well and we just need to get more sustained levels of energy."

Parsons makes no secret that he hoped his team took heed of the message he was trying to send by starting teenager Clarke on Monday night too.

"I tried sending a message by starting Mitch as well," he said.

"It needs to be accepted that you have to reward effort and while we are losing games at the moment, that's OK early in the season because it's only Round 6 and we are finding our feet, but if we don’t identify who we are we may not end up stringing the wins together that we need.

"You have to reward the effort and play the guys who want to leave everything out on the floor. Mitch has bought himself another opportunity or maybe he doesn’t, but what we do know is that he brings the level of energy we need."

It's not just that Parsons expects those players he wants more from to put more points on the board. He just wants them to deliver the effort he expects and to find a way to impact the game in any way that they can.

"There's many ways you can impact a game and sometimes the scoreboard isn’t the telling factor," Parsons said.

"One of the things we've noticed in the 40-minute games is that it's the team that can string some hard efforts in and win the loose balls, or create a 50-50 chance and take your offensive boards and score from those that makes a huge difference.

"You need the structure in your system to actually get down after that and back yourself in to get a good shot, and it goes a long way. We have a lot of areas that we need to look at and we will.

"We will look under every rock until we find every recipe and the beautiful thing about the system is that it works. It's just a matter of finding our right pieces."

It's not just imports Brian Carlwell and Waters who Parsons is trying to get the best of their abilities out of. But there's no question that if they can start setting the example, the rest of the team could jump on board quickly.

Having a look at the Senators loss on Monday night, they just won by wanting it more, winning the hustle plays and getting big efforts from plenty of players most notably Ash Litterick dominating despite being undersized against Carlwell.

Parsons is making no secret that it's his imports who need to respond the most and it needs to start Friday night against the Perth Redbacks at Belmont Oasis.

"The reality is they have to respond. It's not up to me to drop my standards to accept their levels if they're not delivering what we need and expect from them," he said.

"They are both great guys and both are very talented basketballers who have still had good games this year, so I back them both to rebound and come back out with a completely different level.

"We'll provide them with that support and education so they can turn it around quickly and then hope that the rest of the guys don’t drop off when they do hit their straps. You can have one or two guys going every night, but to win in this league you need three or four.

"That's what Stirling had with Litterick going off and he's a hell of a talent, but Rhys Vague did some good stuff, Jayden Coburn made his mark in all areas and then there was Cody Ellis. We need sustained efforts from more guys than we are getting at the moment."

It's not as though things are terribly placed for the Hawks despite the disappointment of last weekend's losses to the Buccs and Senators.

They remain at 3-4 and inside the top eight and what Parsons is pleased with is that they've shown they can dig themselves out of one hole during a game.

They just can't afford to keep getting into another hole after getting out of that first one.

"We keep digging ourselves into holes and good teams can get out of them. We always find ourselves back into games so we know we can do that and that we can play with the intensity and energy we require, but it's all about sustaining it," Parsons said.

"Against Geraldton on Saturday night, you can't expect to climb out of two holes against them and then Stirling to their credit put us in two holes as well. We had to dig again and just didn’t have enough energy or poise at the end to finish it off.

"We need guys to make plays when we need them, and to breakdown offences if we are going to win. We need to find more easy baskets through execution that takes some of the pressure off."

Photo by Vikki Hile