April 13th, 2012 by Dusty Rychart

Snake Diaries is a Channel 7 Cairns production.  Each week a player was asked to interview a teammate on the up coming weeks game and a few things that fans didn’t know about them.

February 29th, 2012 by Dusty Rychart

Well it’s that time of the year again! No it’s not tax time but you’re close. It’s the business end of the season. We are currently 14-10 and fighting for a top 4 spot. It’s not going to be an easy end of the season for us. We have another game in Perth and 3 at home starting with the Gold Coast Blaze this weekend at the Snake Pit.

We take care of business at home and I think that will be enough to get us in the playoffs for a 2nd straight year! Beating Perth in WA last Sunday was a huge win for us moving forward and building confidence that we can win anywhere if we play our style of ball.

I’m looking forward to the end of the season as it brings out the best and loudest crowds in Aus at the Snake Pit. Hopefully Cairns gets behind us now vs Blaze and bring that playoff atmosphere that is so intimidating to opposition teams.

On a personal note: It took a long time but my foot is finally healing. It’s frustrating that it took this long but better late than never. The problem i have now is getting in game shape and finding that form I had at the beginning of the season. Slowly it’s coming around but it really doesn’t matter as long as we keep on winning.

January 1st, 2012 by Dusty Rychart

We finished 2011 with a win over the New Zealand Breakers last night in front of a sold out Cairns Convention Center. Overall it was a boring game but Al Loughton provided us with the dunk of the year. The picture below are our reactions when he dunked over Alex Pledger. One of those priceless moments.

December 11th, 2011 by Dusty Rychart

May 13th, 2011 by Dusty Rychart

What a year! If anyone would have told me when I signed here two years ago that we would have made it to the Grand Final I would have laughed. When I first arrived at the club they were rebuilding and starting over from scratch. Teams take years and sometimes decades to rebuild a club to a championship caliber team. To do it in the 2nd year is unheard of and you have to give credit where credit is due. The hard work from all the players, coaching staff and support staff are what made this run possible. The support from the Cairns and the community also were a big part in our success.

We started the season on fire winning 9 of our first 12 games which saw our confidence rise and many believing that we could make the playoffs and all of sudden we hit a huge road block. Dropping a large chunk of our games during the mid point of the season brought us crashing down to earth. We couldn’t win a game if our lives depended on it. The lowest point of the year was dropping games to the 2 bottom teams. Starring adversity in the eye and our backs against the wall we threw a knock out punch in Adelaide . Coming back from 15 down in the 4th to give us the boost of confidence and added a little swagger to the group. This was the first sign of toughness as a team.

It didn’t get any easier from there as we needed to win most of our final games to make it into the playoffs. At this point in the season we slipped from 2nd to 5th with the remaining games against the top 4 teams. One by one we slowly picked off wins and showed more toughness.

Wollongong was the team that stood in our way of securing the last playoff spot and it happened that we played them twice at their place. The first game down there was a game to remember. Down most of the game we made a comeback once again on a Phill Jones “3″ to win by one and then again a week later. At this point we were getting stronger as a team and believing we were capable of winning a championship.

All it took was a few road wins and a never quit attitude. Being the under dog throughout the playoffs series was something the team and the community cherished. Game 3 in Townsville was won by our fans as 1000+ loyal Snakes slithered into Croc territory and made it feel like a Taipans home game. Winning yet another crucial game on the road gave us even more confidence going into the Grand Final.

Going into the GF I knew NZ wasn’t going to take us lightly as they already had their scare in game #1 of the semi-finals vs Perth. The Breakers brought their “A” game and we went down by 20 in game #1 but we knew we could get em in game #2. Little did I know that game #2 would be the best game that I have ever witnessed in my life. I’ll admit that for the first 38 minutes the game was ugly as hell but who can argue the big time shots that put it into OT and Double OT?! The snake pit was the loudest it’s ever been and who could blame em! Ron’s “3′s” to get us into the 2nd OT were amazing and the crowd got us over the line. Unfortunately we couldn’t bring home the Championship but to get this far built memories that I will never forget. It was an amazing ride and the most impressive of it all was the way the Cairns community got behind us and supported us all the way to the end. Cairns you’re a class act and I just want to say Thank You!

I’ll leave you a video of Chewy, Ron and Dean Dancing off vs the Kiwis before Game #3 of the NBL Grand Finals.

April 25th, 2011 by Dusty Rychart

April 22nd, 2011 by Dusty Rychart

April 16th, 2011 by Dusty Rychart

April 10th, 2011 by Dusty Rychart

April 2nd, 2011 by Dusty Rychart

Taipans finish regular season in 3rd (highest finish in the clubs history!) Bring on the playoffs!

It’s been one of those roller coaster seasons. We started the season off great and then hit a mid season slump that tested our characters as individuals as well as a team. We went through the trenches and came out on top and that says a lot about this team. Like I said a few weeks ago playoff/championship teams find ways to win and that’s what we did.

Thank You Cairns for the outstanding support you’ve given us through out the season and last night we showed Australia why we have the best fans in the league. SOLD OUT! Great Atmosphere to play in front of. Bring it this Saturday and you can expect another great game.

The playoffs look like this: PLAYOFF Schedule

Breakers (1) vs Wildcats (4)
Taipans (3) vs Crocs (2)

Note:

We have a few guys up for some league awards this Monday night at the NBL Awards dinner. Ian Crosswhite – Most Improved, Daniel Dillon – Most Improved, Aaron Fearne – Coach of the year and myself for best 6th man.

Congratulations guys and the so called experts said we wouldn’t make the playoffs. Well we made it and now lets make some noise!