The Rams have come on in leaps and bounds this season after failing to win once in 2016 but the side endured a difficult weekend on the road, losing to the Wagga Heat twice in two days.

The two sides met at West Wyalong on Saturday in a match rescheduled after Dubbo couldn’t host it early in the season before making the short trip to Wagga for Sunday’s match.

A referee mix-up, which resulted in the game on Saturday starting two-and-a-half hours later than scheduled, affected the Rams momentum in a 88-71 loss before a red-hot Wagga team dominated in Sunday’s match, which ended 93-56.

“It wasn’t the best,” Rams player-coach Damien Reid said of the weekend.

“We ran into a Wagga team pretty determined to climb the ladder into the top eight as much as it can.”

While frustrated to see his side fall to two disappointing defeats, Reid said his side could have little complaints after a poor preparation.

There has been lower than normal showings at training but the coach wants to see more numbers this week before a home clash with the Queanbeyan Yowies.

“The training sessions for the past month have probably been a bit slack,” he said.

“We’ve only had six or seven at training and that’s starting to show on the court.

“We’ve just had a bit of a ‘she’ll be right, we can get out of this’ mentality but in reality there’s been on attention to detail at training.”

The referee mix-up was one reasons the Rams struggled for continuity on Saturday but it was an issue which affected players from both sides and also the fans.

A crowd was on hand early as the Rams began to warm-up at 1pm, an hour before the expected tip-off, and Wagga started to go through its paces.

But no officials turned up only for the players to soon discover the referee was originally on the way to Dubbo before turning around, in what Reid called “miscommunication between Basketball NSW and the referees”.

“It was hard to stay mentally prepared and physically ready for a game you expected to start two-and-a-half hours beforehand,” he added.

Wagga went into Sunday’s match buoyed by the earlier win and Zac Maloney hit top form to lead his side to a second, more dominant victory.

Maloney hit six threes in his 28 points while Scott Hare also dropped 28 in the result, while Conrad Etchi was Dubbo’s best with 19.

One positive for Dubbo was Andre Carter finding the basket for his first State League points.