Tasmania have been lucky to walk away with a draw against NSW in their latest Sheffield Shield clash and skipper George Bailey admits it's a long road to improvement for his side.
Tigers middle-order batsmen James Faulkner (100no) and Beau Webster (80no) batted through more than two sessions on Tuesday and their partnership staved off a likely Blues victory at Bellerive Oval.
Although finishing 148 runs short of their target, the duo did what they needed to do and what the side has so often been incapable of - stood their ground.
"A lot of our losses in recent times have been quite big ones so it's nice to see some fight, some toughness and a bit of pride in fighting the game out," Bailey said.
"There are three results and when you aren't playing your best cricket, as we are at the moment, you've got to take out of it what you can so we knew coming in it was going to be really difficult."
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NSW posted strong innings of 5(dec)-495 and 1(dec)-128 to which the hosts could muster only 209 and 4-266 in reply.
On the final day they needed a whopping 391 runs for victory and hopes quickly faded with the loss of early wickets.
"It needed to be almost a perfect day, we needed a perfect partnership from the start of the day," Bailey said of any prospect of winning.
But the result has raised a few positives as the Tigers do some soul-searching.
"We're probably still not where we'd like to be and it's not going to turn in one week," he said.
"When you sit back and look at it realistically, we were outplayed for three-and-a-half days so it's more about taking the positives out of this but also looking at the stuff we need to improve on and working through that game by game."
Tasmania will be without Bailey and Faulkner - who enter Australia's one-day camp - when the side hosts Victoria for a day-night Shield match starting on Monday.
