LAKESIDE Lightning coach Craig Mansfield hasn’t set any expectations on what his team can achieve in 2017 nor put a ceiling on it but he can't fault their start in the Women's SBL without Ash Grant and Sam Roscoe.

Prior to the bye last week, the Lightning had started the Women's SBL in encouraging fashion having won five of eight games.

Two of those losses were at the hands of the undefeated Mandurah Magic and Perry Lakes Hawks while the Lightning also suffered a loss to the Cockburn Cougars on the back end of a double-header.

But before last week's bye, they had bounced back emphatically with an 87-58 road win over the East Perth Eagles with Perth Lynx squad member Grant returning for her first game of the SBL season.

She had 14 points and seven rebounds in 13 minutes, but as has been the case all season, what impressed Mansfield the most was the all-round contribution.

Sure imports Sydnee Fipps (14 points, six rebounds) and Ali Schwagmeyer (12 points, nine boards, five assists) had good games, but it was the contribution of a host of others that Mansfield liked the most.

Jess van Schie had seven points and six rebounds while the emerging Alex Bell (seven points, four boards), Tiahrn Flynn (eight points), Alexia Knowles (six points, three assists) and Courtney Green (three points, two boards) all made strong contributions.

That has been the story of the start to the season for the Lightning as Mansfield looks for improvement on his first season in charge where they returned to the playoffs in sixth position before losing to the eventual champion Willetton Tigers in the first round.

Lakeside returns to action with three successive home games the next three weekends starting on Friday night against the Stirling Senators before the Perth Redbacks next Saturday and the Eagles again the following Friday.

With Grant back in the line-up for the Lightning following her WNBL season with the Lynx and then a six-week rest period and with Roscoe due back soon from the University of North Dakota, Mansfield is looking forward to blending them in and continuing their momentum.

"There might be some teething problems even though we have designed our offence and defence so they can plug in, but they do have certain strengths and weakness," Mansfield said.

"I do know Ash well and I'm excited after a WNBL season to see how she'll go now that she's freshened up.

"And with Sam, she played with me several years ago but she is a very different athlete now and I'll get a feel for her. But the main thing for us moving forward is for everyone to play as a team, and celebrate everyone's success."

Throughout the opening seven games of the season, Mansfield didn’t want his players worrying about the fact that they were undersized inside with Grant and Roscoe yet to arrive.

He wanted there to be no excuses and he wanted the likes of Bell, Knowles and Green to make the most of the opportunities it provided to them.

He was impressed with how each of them stood up with Fipps and reigning MVP Schwagmeyer obviously leading the way.

Now it's up to him to fit Grant and Roscoe into a rotation and system that has been working.

"I tried not to talk about us not being at full strength because I didn’t want to discredit the contribution the girls were making. Alex Bell, Alecia Knowles, Courtney Green have done really well. The only game we were physically overmatched in was against Hawks," he said.

"Even Ali and Syd have had to play bigger too at times and some other girls have done well to battle hard. The thing is if we can be good defensively positionally and get our rotations right, then our defence will only get better when we have more size and rebounding.

"I have actually had some sleepless nights thinking about how our rotations will work when the girls are already doing well, but I hope the girls are enjoying it.

"I'm enjoying it and we are really pleased with our start. We don’t necessarily have expectations on the season but we don’t have a ceiling either and we'll just see how it goes."

Fipps has had a terrific start to her SBL career providing the Lightning with the genuine second scoring option and shooter behind Schwagmeyer that they didn’t necessarily have in 2016.

Mansfield did have high hopes for her after her college career at the University of California Davis before stints overseas in Germany and Portugal, but until he saw her deliver in person he wasn’t going to get too carried away.

"Firstly we didn’t know if Syd would be a star in this league so that's the first thing we needed to find out. She had a little stint overseas, but looking at her college film I thought she was a really good fit," he said.

"We obviously needed some perimeter shooting from last year around Ali and I like her size and some of the things she can do. It's just a nice fit. She can slide to the four at the moment but ultimately she'll play wing all the time.

"She's been fantastic so far but imports are imports to be honest, and you want to get ones who provide great chemistry which her and Ali do.

"But we'll always get one or two imports every year, the make or break for us is the development of the local girls and some of them have really come along for us while we've been missing players."

Schwagmeyer had an outstanding season obviously in 2016 winning the league MVP award, but she wasn’t 100 per cent for the most part battling a nagging ankle injury.

She played through it, but has got it right over the off-season and now is much closer to 100 per cent this season.

The results are obvious with her quickness and mobility improved significantly.

Mansfield wants to make sure that she uses her immense talents to benefit the team to the maximum.

"It's not so much about her being able to do more, it's about impacting the game in a variety of ways. Ali can go out and if she wants to get 30 points every night, but we need her to play in a way that impacts our team on both ends the most," Mansfield said.

"She has been fantastic so far as have a number of the girls, but a healthy Ali is a special thing to watch.

"The big thing about this team and it's something Jess van Schie said to me, they are a good group and they all like each other, and the chemistry is good. So when you have that it tends to be when you have the most success."

Photo by Vikki Hile