CAPTAIN'S CALL: There really is no place like home

Wollongong's obviously been home for me for a long time now. A lot of the new guys we have this year haven't had the opportunity to lay down roots that deep, but it's still very much home for all of us.

It can sometimes be hard to drag yourself out of bed the morning after a game to get on an early flight but most of the guys were up an hour early because they were so keen to get back.

It's not just the bed you sleep in, it's being back at the Snakepit, it's being back in our gym, it's being back with our full staff and it's interacting with our fans.

We've been in a situation where we've had to manufacture our own energy for a long time now, so all of those things give you a major boost. This is where we laid the groundwork and where we feel most comfortable.

It's no secret how long we've been on the road and away from home. We've played 15 games now and only one of them at the WEC.

The crowd was amazing that night, but even the lead-up to that game felt like a road preparation given we flew in the afternoon of the game and played that night.

We also had it in the back of our minds that the NBL Cup was looming. None of us were expecting it to be easy and it wasn't.

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Given we're playing United in Melbourne again this weekend some people have asked why we bothered coming back beforehand but there's no question it's been worth it.

With the NBL Cup behind us, it feels like a fresh start and a chance to mentally reset regardless of where we play. We were certainly counting down the games by the end of it.

Yes it'll be a challenge to head back to Melbourne, but we've got pretty good at putting these things into perspective this year.

We don't have the opportunity to play at the WEC again just yet so we were always going to have to travel somewhere. As far as that goes, Melbourne is one of the lesser demanding trips we could make.

It'll certainly be demanding on the floor because United have lost a couple now and we got over the top of them last weekend.

I don't think it was a spectacular performance on our behalf but we did enough to win and that's all you need to do sometimes, particularly in the situation we were in.

It was a grind, we dug ourselves a bit of a hole in that third quarter but I don't think Melbourne is a team you're going to step on and just run away from.

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They've got too much talent, too many scorers and too much experience to really run away from the way we have in wins against some other teams. To stick at it and grind one out under tough circumstances was important for our development as a team.

We'll definitely take a lot of confidence out of it, but we know they'll be ready for us this week. We're going to have to be better again, but we feel we match up well with them.

One thing we are aware of is that we're nudging the second half of the season and that we're going to play a bunch of the remaining games on our floor.

This short trip home is a good reminder of that. There's some tough times to come but, if we can give ourselves a running start into that run home, we can definitely give this thing a shake.