Bassett stars on Perth netball return

Caitlin Bassett has delivered a near flawless performance on her return to Perth to lead the Sunshine Coast Lightning to a 66-49 Super Netball victory over West Coast Fever.

The former Fever mainstay and Australian shooter thrived on her return to HBF Stadium.

Bassett hit all 22 of her shots in the first half and added 11 more without a miss in the third quarter.

Caitlin Bassett starred for the Sunshine Coast Lightning. (Getty Images)

She did miss two early in the fourth but ended up with 44 from 46 to lead her new team to the comfortable win.

Lightning arrived after successive one goal games losing to Giants Netball and beating Collingwood. Fever also were on a high after their first win of the new competition beating the NSW Swifts.

However, the experience and quality of the Lightning was on show early even with import Laura Langman not playing due to a nasty finger injury.

Lightning raced to a 7-2 advantage. Despite the young Fever line-up continuing to fight, they were outclassed and never seriously threatened.

Lightning now have four wins, a loss and a draw this season. Fever have lost five of their six games.

Bassett was closely watched mostly by Courtney Bruce before debutant Annika Lee-Jones was thrown the job in the last 22 minutes. Stephanie Wood also shot 22 of 24 for Lightning.

Kaylia Stanton was coming off a breakout shooting performance for Fever. But being defended by Geva Mentor was something else.

She struggled to 11 of 15 before being replaced by Kate Beveridge midway through the second quarter. Beveridge finished with 21 of 25 with Nat Medhurst contributing 17 of 23.

Fever remains home to host the Adelaide Thunderbirds next Saturday night at Perth Arena.

Lightning have a local derby with the Queensland Firebirds Sunday at the USC Sippy Downs Stadium.

Bassett gave full credit to her teammates after enjoying the winning return.

"I was really proud and my team did a fantastic job tonight," Bassett said.

"I think they knew I was probably going to have a little bit of nerves but from the first minute they were all class. That definitely set me at ease.

"They did a fantastic job of getting me the ball in my favourite spot under the post and then Steph really took the load off me too."

Fever coach Stacey Marinkovich was disappointed her team couldn't back up last week's performance against the Swifts.

"We made fundamental errors more in our long court more than our centre pass," Marinkovich said.

"We actually got some ball and threw it straight back to them and they scored off it. It was just errors that let us down most this week. "