Another game out of the way and I must admit I was absolutely delighted with our win at Thames Valley last night.

We started slowly, but that was because we have been resting the players so much that they needed a few minutes to get their second wind.

Once they managed that I thought we did a really good job defensively. Offensively we were okay and had some big-time individual performances to enjoy.

The ball moved really well and we worked some wide open lay-ups at the basket when we needed them. We are really playing well right now.

On Saturday we host Leicester and it's a game where we will need the fans to lift us. They might not be quite so excited about playing the bottom team in the league, but I know Leicester's two new signings and they are good players so it won't be that easy for us.

I guess I know, though, what most of you have been talking about this week.

It was a long time coming but hopefully our cup final win over Chester Jets on Sunday was worth the wait.

You could see by my reaction it meant a lot to me. I was extremely happy for the players, for the fans and for the staff at the Bears.

I was asked afterwards what things we did right from the tactical point of view to overcame our half-time deficit and win by ten points.

To be honest, I don't tend to get technical like that. I never sit and say: "We cut here and they cut there and that's why we won"

What it came down to was effort. We were running hard back, we were talking and communicating, we were switching defences, we were moving the ball, we were going to mis-matches on offence.

In other words, we were on it and we had to be to beat Chester because they are a great team.

When they got back from ten points down to four I thought we were going to be in a dogfight. I had been waiting all day for them to do that.

The great thing was we were scoring such big baskets time after time. They would back off Rico or someone and, bang, we would score.

We kept scoring to answer them and, when we got the lead back out to eight by doing that, I just thought: "Thank God." We kept answering every little run they made.

There was no doubt who the better team was on the day and they will get a little medal to show that for the rest of their lives. No one can take that away from them.

After the game we didn't have the big celebration you might expect. We watched the Worthing Thunder game, then we loaded up the bus, which seemed to take forever, and tracked everybody down in the various parts of the arena.

The best part was that the BBC gave us a tape of the game and we watched that on the way home. Someone put a movie on to start with but then my assistant Steve Swanson said: "I think I've got the game tape somewhere."

Everyone came down to the front of the bus and there was a lot of joking and heckling going on. It was really funny, one of the memorable moments of a great day. Now let's make sure there are more of them.

GO BEARS