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WNBL regular season champion Townsville, rolling into Game 1 of the Grand Final Series on a 14-win streak, last night humiliated Southside 94-63 - the biggest win in a championship game or series since the league launched in 1981. To say Flyers coach Cheryl Chambers has a job to salvage this series is a massive understatement.

Fire counterpart and WNBL Coach of the Year Shannon Seebohm had the Flyers fully scouted, Townsville jumping out to an immediate lead, never to be caught by Southside and winning every quarter of the most one-sided contest in Grand Final history.

Obviously buoyed by the confidence from their club record winning streak and the fact they swept the Flyers 3-0 across the regular season, the Fire had answers for every predictable Southside move.

Steph Reid, Karlie Samuelson and Tianna Hawkins were off to hot starts in a 28-14 first quarter rout which had the nearly-4,000 strong crowd at Townsville Entertainment Centre roaring.

Then it was Shyla Heal's turn to embarrass the Flyers. En route to a game-high 23 points on 9-of-10 shooting including 3-of-3 threes, Heal made Southside's zone look more like cones as the Fire compiled a whopping 57 points to halftime.

Briefly toying with a 3-2 zone defensive alignment, the Flyers had some joy cobbling together an 8-0 run. But they were already so deep in the ditch, it made little difference when the Fire re-focused.

Courtney Woods came off the bench to fire up 11 points in what was more than a cameo as Seebohm had the luxury of resting Hawkins for the entire fourth period. 

Lauren Nicholson stepped up and her nine points were matched by Reid's and Zitina Aokuso's as Southside mustered a meagre 11-point finale, Chambers ultimately conceding and clearing her bench.

Seebohm did likewise as Townsville left Southside with precious little to take from the thrashing that could point to any sort of massive reversal in Wednesday's Game 2 in Melbourne.

Bec Cole worked hard for her 20 points at an ultra-efficient 75 per cent, but had little offensive help beyond Sara Blicavs (11 points, 6 rebounds).

The Fire were on point from tip-off, simply played a very tough and controlled brand of basketball and never waivered from the task at hand.

No Maddi Rocci-type bitching to officials, no Missing-In-Action style Carley Ernst (0-of-6 in 14:40), with stud import Kayla Thornton also contained to five points on 1-of-4 shooting in 26 minutes.

This was a Townsville blueprint of brilliance and while a far more competitive Game 2 is likely, a different result is less so.

WNBL GRAND FINAL SERIES (Best-of-3)
JCU TOWNSVILLE FIRE (1) v JAYCO SOUTHSIDE FLYERS (2)
Game 1: TOWNSVILLE FIRE 94 (Heal 23, Hawkins 20, Woods 11; Ruef 9 rebs; Reid 7 assts) d SOUTHSIDE FLYERS 63 (Cole 20, Blicavs 11, Rocci 9; Blicavs 6 rebs; Rocci 4 assts) at Townsville Entertainment Centre. Crowd: 3,717

Fire lead series 1-0

FYI: THE previous record margin in a WNBL Grand Final was the 28 points by which Nunawading Spectres beat North Adelaide Rockets in their one-and-done championship decider in 1988. The Spectres won 71-43.