We have been doing our homework ahead of this huge weekend for the Brighton Bears and we are ready to go.

Our unbeaten side take on Chester Jets, who last season became the first team in years to win the cleansweep, on Saturday, then we have a trip to improving Milton Keynes less than 24 hours later.

I was at Thames Valley last night to see them lose by ten at home to Chester and I will be receiving a tape of the evening's other game, in which Milton Keynes took a big lead at Towers but lost by nine.

Last night's trip was a valuable exercise but, to be honest, I thought it was a pretty poor game. There was not a lot of intensity or defence being played but, saying that, Thames Valley had some good moments, most of them from behind the three-point arc.

Chester did what they always do. They got the ball to the right guy at the right time, and usually that guy was Calvin Davis. Believe me, anybody is happy to get out of Thames Valley with a win.

I thought Davis looked great and he will be a threat. Kenny Gregory had 35 points and has been a good signing but are they better than last year's all-conquering team? At the moment, I don't think so.

True, they have Gregory and Todd Cauthorn now as opposed to Dave Gardner and James Hamilton. Any coach in the league would take that change in personnel without hesitation. Whether it is the right combination, however, we will have to wait and see.

At the moment I am not sure it is. One player can make a big difference on a team. That is why I took the decision to swap Ryan Blackwell for Rico Alderson at the start of the season. It was not an easy one, believe me. I obviously liked Ryan or I would not have brought him in here and taken him on the pre-season trip to Portugal but there has been a big swing in our team for the better since I made that change.

We were hearing the Milton Keynes score updates last night and they were about 20 up on the Towers at one stage. They have made two changes to their team recently and they are looking good now. Another tough game in prospect there, then.

We spend a lot time watching videos in this job. I have reviewed the tape of last Sunday's cup win over Newcastle and I stand by what I said in the post-game interviews. I thought we stood around a lot, we did not handle the ball very well and we were poor in a lot of other areas. Yet in a way that is encouraging because we won by 18 points.

You will recall we were 7-0 down when I called my first timeout. I don't suppose people have seen anything like that in my two seasons with the Bears. It was painstaking for the fans when they had to stand up until our first basket.

I will let you in on a secret. I always wanted to do that when I came to play Brighton as coach of the away team. I always wanted to score the first basket, have the ball go out of bounds and call timeout and make them stand up. I had to do it to my own fans this time.

Good support on Sunday though, wasn't it? I thought it was a lively, active crowd who were having a really good time. It was also good to see Mike Brown hitting that little groove of making two or three shots in a row. He started out the season well, had a couple of bad games when he was battling with injury and it was nice to see him stroke a few threes. Let's hope the guys all step up this weekend. We need them to.