Illawarra led the Wildcats by eight points with six minutes remaining and looked to have the round three clash at their mercy.

But the Hawks struggled to close the game out, eventually crumbling to a 106-99 defeat.

Coach Rob Beveridge admitted post-game that his side ‘blew it’ and promised they would learn from the experience.

Last Friday against Cairns they got the chance to show they had.

The Taipans cut a 19-point deficit to four in the fourth quarter and looked a chance of stealing the match until Illawarra put their lessons into practice.

‘‘I think that loss to Perth helped,” Hawks centre AJ Ogilvy said after the 96-88 win.

“We all kind of banded together and said this isn’t happening again.

“We need to get one stop here, one stop here sort of thing.

“I think that is what really helped us and we learnt from our mistakes and made sure we didn’t let it happen again.’’

The true test of how much the Hawks have learnt from the Wildcats meeting will come on Wednesday night when Perth come back to Wollongong.

Perth already hold a 2-0 lead in the series after they demolished Illawarra 91-62 in Western Australia ten days ago.

Beveridge is adamant the battering was another important experience for the Hawks.

‘I always talk about learning from what happened in the past,” he said.

“Our backside was handed to us [in that match].

“You can make excuses that we play three in six day and travelled.

“That can contribute but mentally we weren’t switched on against Perth.

“We have to get better at the mental aspect of the game.

“The hardness and desire to rebound.” 

That desire was on show on the boards last week when the Hawks won their first rebound count of the season at home to Cairns.

But Beveridge believes Illawarra must continue to improve if they are to challenge their NBL rivals this season. 

“We are never, ever content,” Beveridge said.

‘‘I am one of the most competitive human beings on the planet.

“We did some outstanding stuff [against Cairns] and we did some stuff that was pretty poor so we are going to analyse that fourth quarter and make sure when we come back that we get in the trenches and put our hard hats on because we need to get better.

‘‘It would be stupid not to say that because we know we need to get better.”

Tyson Demos is expected to be fit to return in the match after spending the past three matches on the sidelines nursing a knee injury.

Perth will be without skipper Damian Martin, who is faced with a long stint out with a broken jaw.

Tip-off is at 7.30pm.