Gary Smith admits Worthing Thunder's Trophy scare could be just what they needed.

Thunder saw an 11-point half-time lead slip against Division One side Ealing last week to such an extent that they briefly trailed with six minutes to go.

A few timely interventions from Sean Hampton and Gaylon Moore saw them through 75-71.

Smith, still looking slightly shaken after the match, admitted: "Round about now we are making it hard for ourselves. We are doing dumb stuff out there which isn't helping the team.

"But we have got good players and we will get better. We've always got players to go to.

"Sean Hampton is a crunch time player and that's one of the reasons I got him here.

"He's never seen a shot he wasn't comfortable with."

Hampton hit 30 points and Moore 13 but Smith also picked out some of the less obvious contributions from the bench.

He said: "You can't get more crunch time than when James Brame came on for the last minute and a half, but he got an offensive rebound, defensive rebound, went to the basket hard and put himself in a situation where the referee had to make a call.

"The guys on the bench told me Gaylon didn't touch the ball for such and such a time. I was so caught up in the game I hadn't noticed, but we changed it and got him the ball."

Smith will make full use of his bench this weekend as Thunder host Inter-basket tonight and go to Westminster tomorrow.

Bognor Pirates' shooting percentage slumped to just 33 as they crashed 78-65 at home to Oxford Hoops.

Paul Sparrowhawk hit four three-pointers in his 20 points and Lee Barnes managed three from long range in his 16 points.