The Steel was unbeaten in the regular season but fell to the experienced Magic in Invercargill to send its playoffs campaign to Australia, where it will play the winner of tonight's match between the Firebirds and Swifts.
Frew was gutted by the Steel's performance in front of her home crowd but was making no excuses after being beaten by a better side.
"They played a great game. Full credit to them, they deserved their win.
"They came out firing right from the start and we certainly trained hard all week so we're going to have to go back to the drawing board and see what went wrong.''
Frew said her side did well to get back into the match but it was too hard to play catch-up at such a level.
"We came back into it but we just weren't quite good enough in the end.
"They certainly had a good game plan against us and we didn't absorb the pressure well enough.''
She was confident the Steel could step up in its semifinal next week but was under no illusions there was a lot of improvement needed.
"We've got a lot of work to do this week. It certainly was not a good enough performance from us.
"Every single one of us on the court needs to step up and have a really good look at ourselves and our game and see where we can improve.''
