Perth Lynx coach Ryan Petrik has declared managing player workloads is a waste of time amid the uncertainty of COVID fixtures and he will attack the challenge of playing three games in six days by remaining present.

The Lynx will play in three of the WNBL’s four matches throughout round seven with games against Southside on Wednesday, Canberra on Friday and Melbourne on Monday.

Players were managed during last season’s gruelling hub schedule but Petrik said he wasn’t thinking about the future this year.

“In the hub last year, the games were confirmed whereas this year games are falling down left, right and centre,” he said.

“If we try to save our legs for game three, then game three might not happen. Someone might catch COVID before then.

“Canberra were meant to play Melbourne and the game got shut down during game-day shootaround. If we try to hold our horses back, we could be wishing we put all of our eggs into the first basket. We have to try to win each game as it comes.”

The Lynx have played only one game this season and showed clear signs of their talent, but struggled to run out the game due to a lack of match fitness. The fear of contracting COVID-19 has prevented them from organising practice matches during their 10-day break, but Petrk said Southside were also facing fitness challenges.

“They’ve been in lockdown for the majority of the week,” he said.

“We think we’ve got a good idea of their game plan but we have no idea who will actually rock up and play. And if those players are coming out of COVID protocols, how healthy are they? Who caught it? Who is 100 per cent? We know what they look like at full strength so we will just prepare for that.

“We just want to play again. We saw how good we could be in glimpses but there was a ton to clean up. That will get ironed out over time. But we’ve barely scratched the surface offensively. We know we can all play better and i can coach better so we’re keen to play.”