IT’S no secret that winning on the road in Cairns is a very tough task but our trip north this week is, in a lot of ways, the light at the end of the tunnel.
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That might sound like strange terminology to use at what’s still a fairly early stage in the season, but it’s an apt description given the path we’ve taken to this point.
When you look at schedule the draw lays out for you, you try to break it down into phases and we’re certainly coming towards the end of a very tough block.
We knew that nine of our first 12 games were on the road. We’ve made the journey to Perth twice and Saturday’s game against the Taipans will be our second trip to Cairns.
It’s obviously made tougher this week by the fact we played Thursday night and then, less than 24 hours later, we’re on a plane to travel straight up there.
The other big factor is that they have a full week to prepare for us and one thing I’ve learned coaching against Aaron Fearne is that he’s got master schemes.
It was the same when you came up against Gordie McLeod in years gone by. They’re such astute tacticians and they do an incredible job, if they’ve got that time, to come up with something different to take you out of your game.
The Taipans have done it twice this season already against Perth and Melbourne. They’re the two supposed super powers of the league, and Cairns have beaten them both by 20-plus margins.
They’ll have that time to prepare for us this week and we’ll have less than 48 hours. It’s a big ask but we’ll go up there confident we can get the win.
It’s also our final road trip before the league breaks up for the Boomers World Cup qualifiers. When we come back from the break, we have Melbourne away and the 10 of 11 games back in Wollongong.
That’s the light at the end of the tunnel I’m talking about. It’s been a real grind thus far, but the guys are going to get a break after this game so there’s no excuses whatsoever.
I also know the boys are also keen to atone for our loss up there in round one. We absolutely let ourselves down that night.
We had a really good preseason, we brought in some quality imports, we had a good preparation, we put ourselves in a position where we should have won it, and we found a way to lose it.
Had we finished that game off, our start to the season would’ve looked very different. Instead we went to 0-3 and the pressure obviously mounted from there.
We had some tough losses early on, but we’ve strung together three really good wins on the road and we’ll head to Cairns comfortable in the belief that we can get it done.
