THANKS to two really impressive team  performances last weekend, we can now  start planning for the play-offs. 

The guys played really well both  offensively and defensively at Milton  Keynes on Friday evening. They held  Demarius Bolds, their top scorer and an  outstanding finisher, to 15 points and in  the end they ran out fairly comfortable  winners – meaning that a win against the  Glasgow Rocks at the Northgate would  ensure that they would make it to the  post-season tourney.

Once again they put on a convincing  performance, with Colin O’Reilly  maintaining his excellent shooting record  with a 31-point haul including seven from  behind the arc. Bill Cole was truly  outstanding in rebounding and blocking  shots to the point where I had the luxury  of being able to give the bench players a  run in the last three minutes.

A special mention to Matt Schneck who  played 30 minutes despite a bout of food  poisoning! He might have looked a pale  imitation of himself, but he still managed  to make a significant contribution.

So we go into the final weekend of the  regular season with two games to play. We have to travel to the north east to  play champions Newcastle Eagles on  Friday but we cannot rely on them sitting  back on their laurels as they seemed to in  their loss to Mersey Tigers last weekend. We have matched up with them pretty  well so far this season, and we could do  with the points in order to finish up as  high as possible so we will treating this  game as seriously as we have done every  other one in the season. 

We have momentum with four wins and  a narrow loss in our last five matches,  and it would be good to carry that into  the play-offs.Then we meet Sheffield Sharks at the  Northgate on Sunday. They’ve not been  the force we have come to expect this  season but they are still tough.

But if we beat them and other results go  our way, we could replace them in sixth  and hold the head-to-head over all the  teams from fifth to eighth!

As I write the only play-off seedings that  are fixed are the Eagles at number one  and the Glasgow Rocks at number five so  there is no way that we can even hazard a  guess at our opponents. What we are certain of is that we will  prepare thoroughly for the game whoever  it happens to be and let them worry about  us, as we seem to be running into a rich  vein of form at just the right time!