PLAYING two games in 24 hours is difficult but that is the current challenge facing Worcester Wolves.

Last night we travelled to Liverpool to take on Mersey Tigers before tonight welcoming Durham Wildcats to the University of Worcester (7pm).

It’s tough playing back-to-back games and basketball is probably the only sport where that happens now. Players have to be in tremendous physical and mental shape.

But we have done well with our double-headers this season because the training and conditioning work off court has been first-class.

We are also used to it because Wolves are one of the few teams who have home fixtures on Saturdays – Leicester Riders being another – so we end up also playing on Fridays or Sundays. Most teams don’t have back-to-back matches.

However, following toni-ght’s match against Durham, we don’t have another double-header until the beginning of March.

Going from two games a week to one is great because you know you can give that match absolutely everything and crawl off the court if necessary.

It’s not in the back of your mind that there is another game coming up 24 hours later.

In back-to-back fixtures, we look to switch to a zonal defence later in games if we have built a comfortable lead so we can conserve energy.

Hopefully, with just the one game at a weekend, fans will see us playing with even more fire-power and commitment.

Tomorrow sees the BBL Cup final between Newcastle Eagles and Plymouth Raiders at the NIA in Birmingham and that is something we aspire to.

Those clubs are there for a reason and probably have the biggest budgets in the lea-gue.

But we weren’t that far off in the competition, losing to Plymouth in the semis, so the next step is to make a final.

We are heading in the right direction and I was pleased with how we did in both the cup and the BBL Trophy.

Wolves are definitely not that far away from these teams and it’s about taking little steps to close the gap.

Although there is still half a campaign to go, we are starting to look forward to next season and could potentially begin talking to players about coming back.

Hopefully, if we can keep our nucleus together with the likes of Tommy Freeman and Richie Gordon, we will set our goals a little bit higher.

But, having said that, it’s one step at a time and we are glad to be back in action in 2012.