At the Illawarra Hawks we have always endeavoured to be the latter no matter what the circumstances. 

It’s the sort of positive mentality we strive to maintain across the club. Unfortunately the same can’t be said about some in the community. 

In the last seven days we’ve quickly seen both sides of that perspective. And in truth, some of it was pretty disappointing at times.

When we beat the defending champions Melbourne United at home last Thursday, the wave of support was fantastic from all corners.

It was a hell of a game and a great win for the club. 

Three days later we came up against the most successful team in the country in the form of the Perth Wildcats.

They were missing a few of their players, but are still an amazing team that features several Boomers guys and the competition’s best player, Bryce Cotton.

While we probably still went in as favourites, we ended up losing the game.

With the defeat quickly came a different wave then what we saw a few days earlier. This time it was a lot of negativity.

Make no mistake, we were incredibly disappointed about the result too but so many people were quick to jump all over us and write us off for the season. 

Those people need a healthy dose of perspective.

Have a close look at our draw to start the season.

So far we’ve played the defending champions United three times and perennial powerhouse Perth Wildcats twice.

One of those games against Perth was in the toughest environment in Australian basketball, just 48 hours after playing a quadruple overtime thriller. 

On top of that, we’ve also had to travel away to both Sydney and Cairns as well.

You’d struggle to find a tougher start to the season across the entire competition. We’ve come through that with a 3-5 record so far.

Now there is obviously room for improvement on that, but by no means is our season already consigned to the scrap heap.

In fact, it’s far from it and it’s certainly not a mentality anyone has around the club. 

We’re staying positive and we were met with a similar perspective from people this week when we visited Canberra to announce a ground-breaking game in the nation’s capital early next year. The mood there was superb and there was a genuine buzz from the community about our decision.

NBL chief executive Jeremy Loeliger was also there and approached me to congratulate the club on performance after a difficult start to the campaign.

It’s positive messages like that we will focus on when we take on Adelaide 36ers this weekend.