"If you asked me what's been the hardest thing to take over the past four weeks, it wasn't hearing the news of not being reappointed. It was the team not performing as well as they could have or should have," he said, with an accompanying sense of bewilderment rather than anger.

On paper the Renegades looked well placed to reach the semi-finals. They had strengthened their batting with the recruitment of Matthew Wade and Callum Ferguson, and benefited from pace tyro James Pattinson playing five matches when he was not expected to play any.

The Renegades' biggest problem was their paucity of anchor innings from batsmen. BBL champions Perth and runners-up Sydney Sixers have 15 scores of 50 or more between them. Hobart, Melbourne Stars and Sydney Thunder each had six 50-plus scores, with four for Adelaide and Brisbane. The Renegades ranked last with a two 50-plus scores.

All but one of the 11 batsmen they used throughout the tournament had international experience. Their most consistent was, ironically, the only one who had not: 24-year-old Tom Beaton.

The Renegades needed to win their last home match, against Adelaide, to be a chance to reach the semi-finals. Once they lost, Helmot knew his job was in peril.

"For sure, because you yourself need to reflect on whether you believe that you should continue on, and obviously a board of directors and the CEO will also decide if you're the right person," he said. "I certainly don't have any ill-feeling with the Renegades. I have great respect for Stuart Coventry, the CEO, and [chairman] James Brayshaw and his board. They've been most supportive."

Helmot's biggest frustration about his sacking was that he had moved on the acceptance stage when the club publicly disclosed its decision. Suddenly, everyone from people who knew through cricket to fellow parents at his children's school wanted to talk about it.

"I knew a week before it became public so I had a week to check one's emotions and work through them. By the time it was actually released I was fine," he said. "It becomes everyone's news, so you can't shy away from it . . . that's elite coaching."

In the decade of Helmot's coaching career, which took him and his family from Melbourne club cricket to Canberra and then back to Victoria with the Bushrangers, dotted with experience with Australia A, and then coaching roles in the IPL and the West Indies' Twenty20 competition, losing his job at the Renegades was the first real career hurdle he had faced. He is nevertheless pleased with the foundations he has laid with the team, and that his faith in his players was rewarded: Aaron Finch has become Australia's Twenty20 captain while Ben Rohrer and Nate Rimmington's prospects at, respectively, NSW and Western Australia have been helped by their BBL form.

A silver lining to that sacking cloud was his reappointment as coach of Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean Premier League. Between planning for the recent draft in the CPL, and being involved in planning for last week's IPL player auction as assistant coach of Hyderabad, Helmot has had a lot to keep him busy since - but not busy enough to completely stop him from thinking about what comes next.

Helmot is one of the few coaches who have ascended to the top level without having reached that level as a player. He does not have a chip on his shoulder about that, although he conceded he was "very aware that, in my case, you usually have to do a bit more than the average" to earn the faith of administrators to get jobs and the faith of players to best carry out those jobs.

Rather than the 43-year-old's modest playing background being a handicap, particularly in relation to the overseas players he has coached across various Twenty20 teams, he said he was pleased to discover it was irrelevant to those players.

"It's actually easier . . . they take you on face value," he said. "Elite athletes are not necessarily concerned about your playing history, but they're concerned how you can assist, contribute to and develop their game."

Helmot's enduring belief that he can do all three for elite players and, as a whole, mould players into a successful group, is so strong that even after critiquing himself after the axe from the Renegades he wants to return to top-class coaching and believes he has built a reputation that will allow that, in Australia or overseas.

"I see myself as a career coach. I'm really passionate about what I do," he said.

"At times you have to wait for opportunities, but if you're front and centre when those opportunities present then you can see yourself still being a very capable and strong candidate for any team that may require your services.

"I have complete faith in my ability to keep growing from the Renegades experience. I'll be looking to apply that in the next organisation or team I'm involved with. I'm thirsty for more success with the teams and organisations I'm involved with. With that comes great satisfaction and further opportunities."