THE Joondalup Wolves are in unfamiliar territory looking to avoid a third straight Women's SBL defeat at home to the Mandurah Magic this Saturday night, but there are no panic stations for coach Craig Friday.

The Lady Wolfpack won their opening three games of the 2017 Women's SBL season on the back of claiming last year's minor premiership and making the grand final.

But now they have suffered losses to the Perth Redbacks and Lakeside Lightning the past two weeks and need to find something special this Saturday night up against the undefeated Magic at Joondalup Basketball.

Week 7 Friday night Women's SBL results 
Week 6 Friday night Women's SBL Results 

At no stage throughout the season have the Wolves been at full strength with Friday missing a couple of games himself as coach while Klara Wischer, Shani Amos, Nikita Martin, Kelli Hayward and Courtney Gerwing have all missed at least one game.

Only Cameron Flynn, Chelsea Belcher, Ellyce Ironmonger and Shanice Swain have played in all five games so far for the Wolfpack in 2017.

That's a large reason why it's far too early for Friday to start to be concerned with where the Wolves sit in the scheme of the Women's SBL again in 2017.

He always knew there would be some significant challenges early on even though things started well with the wins over the Cockburn Cougars, Rockingham Flames and East Perth Eagles.

Then a loss to the deep and talented Redbacks and then against the Lightning last week on the back of a monster first half from MVP Ali Schwagmeyer stung the Wolves, but Friday expects things to only start to improve starting from now even if Amos will again be out against Mandurah.

"There are no panic stations here. We played better in the second half and we'll take that into next week now. We knew that early on in the season we'd have a few hurdles that we'd have to overcome and it's a big challenge for us," Friday said.

"You don’t win championships in April but we do have a bit of work to do, there's no secrets there. We need to blend a few people in and get some minutes under some core players. We'll do that over the next couple of weeks and look to come home with a bit of a wet sail."

While Friday saw some concerns particularly with the first half last Friday night against the Lightning, he remains confident that with virtually the same group he had last season that things will begin to turnaround once they get their full squad back together.

There's every chance the Wolfpack aren’t totally settled in their line-up for 2017 just yet either.

"We spoke about a few things last week and we need a few things that need to start going our way early in games, but really we need to knuckle down and do some hard yards. We'll do that and the girls aren’t afraid of that," he said.

"Give us a couple of weeks and we should start to hum a little bit better. If we don’t then maybe we have to make some further adjustments. Watch this space on that. It might not be an import. We'll just see what we can do and we'll work with that from there."

With Friday having missed a couple of games himself this season due to commitments with the Australian Rollers, he is looking for things to begin to click moving forward but trying to hand the Magic their first loss of 2017 on Saturday night will be tough even at Joondalup Basketball Stadium.

"I've been away for a couple of games so it's just about redefining a few things, and tweaking and adjusting a few things. We'll go to work on that this week leading into a big game against Mandurah," Friday said.

"They are playing well as well and are up and about. They took care of Lakeside pretty comfortably a couple of weeks ago and we've just lost to them so we'll have a big challenge and battle ahead of us. We'll go to work and see what we can adjust and tweak before that game."

Photo by Vikki Hile