It's fair to say the Launceston Tornadoes are looking forward to playing their final three home and away games in Tasmania.
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The fifth-ranked NBL1 South outfit hosts Waverley Falcons at 6pm on Saturday.
It's a home double-header with North West Thunder taking on Waverley at 8pm.
The Torns also play Sandringham Sabres at Elphin Sports Centre next weekend before a clash with Hobart at Kingborough Sports Centre the following week.
It comes after playing eight of their past 11 matches on the road, including four double-headers.
Their most recent road trip, which resulted in a 76-62 loss to Mount Gambier and 89-72 win against Ballarat, proved logistically difficult.
While the island state team is used to travelling, captain Keely Froling explained the added difficulties the team had experienced.
"In the past six weeks, I think we've probably had four weekends away over in Melbourne and flying at the moment is a disaster," she said.
"We've had flights cancelled, we've stayed extra nights. Obviously, just the drive to Mount Gambier was five hours through (literally) sheep paddocks. It's not ideal at all."
The Tornadoes played the Pioneers on the South Australia/Victoria border at 6.30pm on Saturday before travelling to Ballarat straight after the game.
"We got on the road about 8.30pm and then it's a four and a bit hour drive to Ballarat so we drove through the night," she said.
"We got to the hotel about 1am and then by the time you get to sleep, you wake up and you're playing again."
They played the Miners at 12pm on Sunday.
The skipper praised her group's grit.
"We were disappointed with the Mount Gambier game but then to come back against Ballarat and play like we did, that was awesome and showed a lot of resilience in the team because we had about five hours sleep," she said.
She said the Torns would relish the chance to play in front of their home crowd.
"Also just playing single games," she said.
"We've had so many double-headers during this last block and just to finish the season with three single games will be nice and good for the body into recovery as well."
Something else likely to have thrown the Tornadoes was that they were without their coach Sarah Veale who missed the weekend's matches due to COVID.
The Torns mentor is stoked to be back on deck this week.
"You feel pretty useless when you have to watch it on TV," she said.
"And there's obviously some really good points where you can see things you've worked on come to fruition.
"It's very different watching from the couch compared to watching from the sideline when you're coaching it.
"It was hard, particularly the first game where you just want to try and help and support and you can't. Game two against Ballarat was much nicer to watch."
Veale echoed Froling's sentiment about the difficult road trip.
"It was the toughest one we've had and probably the toughest one anyone has in the league," she said.
She commended assistant coaches Hayden Zasadny and Nathan Lee who took the reins for the weekend.
"That was Hayden's first NBL1 coaching experience and what an amazing road trip he had to go on and do it," she said.
"He did an incredible job that's for sure."
Launceston will again be without gun mid-season recruit Marianna Tolo this weekend.
"Tolo is with the Opals in the US at the moment so she won't be back for the rest of the regular season," Veale said.
"But she'll be back for our first final.
"She has qualified for finals. The Opals games that she misses while she's away count (for us)."
Tolo has been away for the past week and a half.
Meanwhile, Veale said Kelsey Griffin, who is in the US on personal leave, would be back on August 5.
"Hopefully she'll play the last two games, definitely the last one," the coach said.
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