I DON’T think that we could have had better preparation for the start of the Twenty20 campaign than last weekend’s win against Durham.

It wasn’t just the 15-run win in the Clydesdale Bank 40 that provided a timely boost, it was a great performance as well and showed exactly why we will be a dangerous team in the Friends Life t20.

The finals day is at the Swalec Stadium this season and I can’t think of a better incentive to make it to the semi-finals than a sell-out crowd at your home ground.

We’re set for a big crowd for Sunday’s game against Warwickshire and that will give us a taste for it. A lot has been made about our start to the season and we can’t hide from the disappointment of having to wait until June for our first win.

But the boys worked so hard over the winter and have practiced their socks off over the last few weeks, constantly asking us coaches to do extra work with them.

They full deserved that win after all that graft, though I was a bit miffed that the boys did the team victory song while I was taking down my camera – I’ve waiting all season and they do it without me!

It was a good win against a good side but we know the importance of building on it, starting in Northampton tonight.

The bowling performance in Colwyn Bay was as good as I have seen from Glamorgan for years.

As a unit they were superb with Simon Jones doing the early damage and then James Harris, Dean Cosker and Will Owen all playing their part.

If they can reproduce that over the next few weeks then we will be in good shape because we have a pretty formidable batting lineup.

I did some throw-downs in the indoor school with our Australian Twenty20 specialist Shaun Marsh and it was frightening how hard he hit it.

At one stage the ball was whistling back past me so fast, flicking my hair on the way, that I was worried that I’d face a spell in the physio room.

In past years we have been lucky to have his fellow Aussie Mark Cosgrove in our team but Shaun hits it even harder than Cossie, with proper shots as well.

We also have Marcus North, Martin van Jaarsveld, Jim Allenby, Mark Wallace and Chris Cooke in our squad and with that power in our team I feel confident that we can chase down big targets or post big totals We take on the Steelbacks tonight after enjoying a useful workout against a Swalec Premier League XI.

It’s always better to play a game than practice in the nets and although we won pretty comfortably the star performer was Sully’s Lloyd Smith.

He scored a century and played some great shots against the same bowlers that had caused Durham so many problems. That will serve the boys well over the coming days.

They are prepared and have the quality to make an impact – hopefully I will be hearing that victory song quite a lot in the next few weeks.