Adelaide Lightning facing uphill WNBL battle in Sydney with player stocks sure to be tested Adelaide Lightning's Jess Foley, right, drives past Logan Thunder's Sarah Graham. ADELAIDE will need a hero in Sydney on Saturday night to compensate the loss of Laura Hodges and Steph Talbot but co-captain Jess Foley believes Lightning will rise to the challenge. One of the Lightning's best wins of this indifferent WNBL season was the 85-82 upset over the Flames in Sydney on October 26. Adelaide had lost to the Caps in Canberra the previous evening, travelled into Sydney on game day, then had to front mid-afternoon. Hodges had 22 points at 75 per cent and Talbot made huge plays down the stretch to ignite a great win. But Talbot is out with a knee injury for another two months while Hodges hurt her hamstring and will miss the re-match too. While Foley isn't making much of it - "I'm fit. I'm playing" - the good doctor has missed most of this week's on-court work suffering from the 'flu. "It's a big ask without Laura," Foley said of the Flames' challenge, Sydney on a four-win streak. She has been so consistent, scoring most of our points and grabbing most of our rebounds. But you have to remember when we beat Sydney, Screeny (Jenni Screen) was out. The circumstances, indeed, were dire but this week has had its ups and downs too. "I haven't trained because I didn't want to get anyone else sick so I stayed away from the group," Foley said. On the up side, WNBA import Chay Shegog has continued to impress as jet lag has landed, rookie coach Richard Dickel impressed with his former University of North Carolina centre. "Chay is a very good low-post player and she has looked better as she has gotten her legs under her," he said. Shegog will be fired up, running into Flames import Kathleen Scheer, a former Atlantic Coast Conference opponent at UNC's hated rival Duke University. But Sydney's depth, with players such as veterans Rohanee Cox, Alicia Poto, Renae Camino and Lauren King complementing young stars led by Katie-Rae Ebzery and Casey Samuels, has the potential to wear away Adelaide's resistance. Lightning's strength going into this though is its size in Shegog, Azania Stewart and Nadeen Payne, coupled with the "nothing-to-lose" attitude which previously caught the Flames flickering.