Well I have now been in the job in Perth for a bit over a week and I can already see why this club has been so successful. The whole presentation of the organisation is nothing short of professional. I always felt the Hawks given their limited man power ran at a very good level but joining the Wildcats has opened my eyes to where we should go to.

The Hawks had a full time coach only recently, a part time administrator, a part time marketing manager and two owners who put a lot of their own time into the running of the organisation. We also relied on a number of volunteers to help make things run as smoothly as the could. In Perth we have seven full time administration staff, 2 full time coaching staff, one part time coach. The admin staff can't do enough to help and the CEO Nick Marvin is a very supportive boss but one who is willing to make the tough calls when needed. An example of this is when he released the coach two seasons ago because he felt it wasn't going in the right direction. The coach had been fairly successful but the change brought about a Championship last season.

Having all this support means that the coaches can just concentrate on coaching which is a great environment for the players. I also have to get myself up to speed on the video editing equipment that we have here. It is similar to what we had in Napier but I have a few more gadgets to play with to help provide information to the players whenever I can. In fact one of the great things I will be able to do is to download video footage onto the players ipods. This will make it very easy and allow me to provide feedback on some of the long flights we will have during the year. In fact if anybody has an interest you can follow me on twitter, my address is Cats_Coach.

I know this when you work in an environment like this it makes you want to excel because of everything you have just like at the Hawks. The Hawks program was one of the best in NZ and it was a pleasure to spend seven years coaching there. I now have a chance to coach in a premier club in the Australian NBL something I have not been able to do before. The clubs I was involved with were always struggling and it was a battle every year to just put a team on the floor that could compete.

Well have to run but I will keep blogging to let you all know how things are going and what we are up to here in Perth. Thanks again to all of those people who supported me in my seven years with the Hawks. I will miss you all.

With energy

SD