Tuatara are not done yet, says boss

We made it to the ABL playoffs and ticked off our first goal of the season. Saturday night was incredibly special. It was emotional for so many reasons. We have all worked our backsides off to achieve this and we have faced a lot of hurdles along the way.

To see the people of Auckland turn up to support us and to share in that success brought it all to life for us. That is why we started the Tuatara – to bring baseball to New Zealand and to give local kids an opportunity.

Josh Collmenter gave us one almighty start and helped us get that crucial win over Brisbane. Kent Blackstone hit the home run to score the only run of the game and Kris Richards made that stunning catch in the outfield that featured as the No 2 play on SportsCenter in the United States.

I will have memories of those moments and of the team spraying champagne and sharing that time with the crowd for the rest of my life.

Noel Davies and the ownership group and board have been brilliant and given us what we needed to succeed.

Regan Wood and his hardworking team have done a great job and I am so proud of what the playing group and coaching staff have done on the field.

But we aren’t done yet.

We are just four wins away from winning the Claxton Shield and a maiden title. We have a very tough series against Melbourne to play this week – starting with a trip to Melbourne to face the Aces tonight in game one.

Then it is back to Auckland for game two on Saturday and a game three on Sunday if needed.

We would love a big crowd there to cheer us on this Saturday night.

Kyohei Muranaka will start tonight’s game and then Jen-Ho Tseng will start on Saturday. After that it will be a case of see what we have left.

We were able to mix and match in the bullpen last Sunday and beat a very good Brisbane side. At this time of the year it’s about trying to win today and worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes.

We saw it with Canberra on Tuesday night needing to use two of their starters to get through Perth in the wildcard game. You just do what you have to do to win right now.

The Aces are a good side and they swept us in Melbourne in week two. We were down on confidence then, however, and I feel we will be much more competitive now and actually match up pretty well with them.

I think this series will come down to execution – whoever does that better will be off to the grand final series.