So here we go. First weekend in October and the first two games in the British League for the Brighton Bears.

I can't believe it has come around so quickly. Wow, what a season it promises to be.

Competition will be tough on all fronts but you know something? I really believe we've got a chance of doing something great here.

Why? Well, for a start, the guys have started to buy into playing defence like I want it played. We've had a couple of nice signings late on that have completed the pieces of the puzzle very well and I think the chemistry is starting to develop.

People will compare this team with the one we had last year. The first thing about this bunch of guys is that there is much more depth to the squad. Last year's team were a pretty cohesive group who knew how to win and we haven't really been tested like that with this group yet.

This team, though, will have more sustainable defensive effort over the course of 40 minutes. Last year, especially with the injury problems that affected us, we had to do a lot of standing around and not playing the way we wanted to play.

This team will be able to go out and guard and defend. I will look for us to full court press a lot more and be a lot more attacking both offensively and defensively. It will be fun to watch.

As for who will be in the shake-up for honours, I think you've got to like the usual four contenders, meaning Chester, Sheffield, London Towers and us.

Towers are the biggest unknown because they keep changing players and we don't know who they really have. I would assume they haven't released their full roster just yet but we know they have Sterling Davis and Ralph Blalock from us, Robert Youngblood and a couple of other guys. They will have an abundance of talent there, no question.

Sheffield, who pipped us to top spot last year, have HL Coleman replacing Jerry Williams and otherwise their team is pretty much intact. They will miss their coach Chris Finch, who has moved to Germany, much as I have great respect for his successor Peter Scantlebury.

Then you look at Chester and their top six is loaded.

I know there is a lot of doom-mongering going on over the lack of announcements for a main sponsor and a TV deal for our league. The fact that Manchester, Derby and now Essex Leopards have all pulled out in the last 20 months or so has also caused some people a few alarms.

I have to admit that I didn't really care much for the Derby or the Leopards organisations. Sometimes you can get better by subtracting. Our league is now down to ten teams. Does that seem small? I don't know, but it makes the level of competition better. As for TV and sponsorship, I'm confident all that stuff will get ironed out.

From our standpoint we are as strong as we have ever been, Our fan base continues to grow, our sponsorship continues to grow and now we are setting out to hit new heights this season. Let's get on with it.

GO BEARS