Gary Smith looked a broken man as he grabbed a chair behind the scenes at the NIA and contemplated another heartbreaking final defeat.

A fourth showpiece setback in as many years was tough for everyone connected with Worthing Thunder, not least their coach.

No doubt he was wondering how a seemingly triumphant trip back to his home city of Birmingham had fallen apart so spectacularly as he mulled over Thunder's shattering 84-78 reverse to NBL powerhouses Teesside Mohawks in the Trophy decider.

Whatever was going through his head, he cut a pretty miserable figure as he sat in silence in the no man's land between the main arena and the busy corridors behind the scenes.

As he did so, his dejected players dragged themselves to the changing rooms scarcely believing the chance they had let slip away.

An hour or more later, those players and accompanying fans and club officials still had a shellshocked look about them as they headed to their bus.

One of the team's most avid followers later admitted it was the most disappointing game he had ever been to.

Smith though insists the time for misery is over and he was not even letting a bout of flu get him down last night as he contemplated exciting challenges ahead.

He admitted: "We lost, it wasn't good at the end, but we put up a good showing until the last five minutes, when we didn't execute.

"We stopped playing to win. We were just trying not to lose and that's where we got caught.

"We will come back from that though. We need to because we have got a lot left to play for."

He added: "I'm optimistic because the team we have got now is better than last year's. We had no cohesion then, the players were not playing as a team.

"We do that now. We could go out there and just play motion offence, three out and two in, with everybody trying to score individually, but we have changed that.

"Now, if we get someone open, he will have an open shot. He just needs to concentrate on putting the ball in the basket.

"It works better that way because you can't single out one player as the danger. Defences can't just say 'We'll stop Lavoris (Jerry) or Gaylon (Moore) and that's enough'.

"Last year we were blown out by Teesside in the final and I was like, 'What happened there?' whereas this year we were up and we played a hell of a game for a lot of minutes.

"I'm proud of the fellas but you shouldn't forget we got 12 points up on Teesside without playing out of our skins.

"We played as a team. That's what got us where we were with ten minutes to go but we hit a brick wall in the last quarter."

Thunder fans feared the worst when Jason Swaine came straight down the court at the start of the fourth quarter with two three-pointers.

Despite a 13-4 opening to the period, Teesside were not out of reach when Jerry hit a three to bring the lead back to 74-72. It was the closest Thunder got as they struggled for rebounds late on.

That was the culmination of another shift in power as Mohawks grabbed boards just when they most needed them.

In the first half, Thunder took just over half the rebounds on offer around the Teesside hoop and 71 per cent of those at their own end.

After the change of ends they managed to take just seven of 21 rebounds available near the Mohawks basket and shaded things 12-9 at their own hoop.

At least three of those nine Teeside offensive boards came in the tense last two minutes when just one well-constructed Thunder offence would have put things back on a knife edge.

Despite that, Smith highlighted the defensive effort of his men over the game as a whole.

He said: "We have got to play good defence, the way we did for 32 minutes on Sunday. "We have still got an awful lot to go for and, if we play our defence with that intensity, we will win games."

Thunder host Reading tonight (8pm) and go to Oxford tomorrow (4pm).