That’s why, as we pause and hit the reset button on the season, I couldn’t be prouder of the group we have and they way they’ve handled this first block of road matches.

We were physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted after our last game against Cairns. You could see it in the eyes and the bodies that there were stages where were just treading water.

They were too good for us on the day, they were too prepared and they deserved to win. After that we sat back and reflected and said ‘hey, we’ve done a hell of a job to stay afloat and be where we are’.

Our record reads 5-6. If someone had told me you’d be 6-5, I’d have taken it in a heartbeat. As it stands, we’re one game off that mark and I’m confident most coaches in this league would be happy with that considering what we’ve dealt with.

It’s no exaggeration to say that, schedule and travel-wise, this opening 11-game stretch has been the most difficult of my NBL coaching career.

We’ve had eight out of 11 on the road and we’ve made the two biggest road trips you can make, in Perth and Cairns, twice. We’ve also had Brisbane and Adelaide away and you can throw in two games that went to overtime.

Runs and draws like that have a habit of prying open any cracks that might have preexisted in your team. It hasn’t done that to us and for me that re-enforces that we’ve brought the right people into our program.

I’ve been in this business long enough to know what’s going to happen when you hit the highs and lows. It’s a roller coaster, and we knew it was going to be that way.

Were there one or two games we could’ve, or should’ve, won? Yes. I’ll be the first to concede that. You can look in the rear-vision mirror and say we could’ve done better and maybe we could have.

At the end of the day, we’re very happy with where we’re at. We’ve got seven games at home over the next couple of months and we’re confident that’s a strong platform to really build the rest of our season from.