Everything all boils down to the importance of longer preparation as well as consistent and better program for the national women's volleyball team.

Setter Jia Morado-de Guzman underscored these valuable points as takeaways after a podium finish eluded the Philippines once again in the 32nd Southeast Asia Games women's volleyball event in Cambodia.

The highly-popular national squad gave Indonesia a run for its money in the battle for bronze but fell short, 20-25,                              25-22, 22-25, 23-25, Sunday night at the Olympic Complex Indoor Main Hall.

With this, the Filipina spikers will return home emptyhanded and will wait for another two years for a chance to end their medal drought that started after they won bronze in the 2005 edition of the biennial meet in Bacolod.

De Guzman felt that they could go toe-to-toe with the Indonesians skills-wise but their familiarity and team chemistry built from playing together for a long time was their biggest advantage.

The Nationals had an opportunity to extend the match to a fifth set but costly errors and miscommunication down the stretch doomed their chances.

"It was anybody's ball game. But also, it all boils down to team chemistry. How much you know each other inside the court," the prized playmaker, who made her fourth tour of duty in the SEA Games, said.

"We had a lot of crucial miscommunications. Balls that we could've controlled better. Those things, you get by playing together for a long time."