This week's drawn game at the beautiful setting of Osborne Park means that the North West Warriors have just one match left in this first Interprovincial season and perhaps now is a good time to take stock of the lessons learned. At the outset I'm guessing that despite expecting this to be a very tough introduction to cricket at this level, the team and management will probably still be disappointed that they didn't pick up a win along the way. They lost by a very narrow 3 wickets against the Knights at Eglinton having lost Johnny Thompson to injury half way through and recorded draws in the other two 3-dayers but that was to be as good as it got so far.

Whilst losing badly in the T20 series was poor form, elsewhere I believe we have to be much more realistic in our expectations. Without wanting to go over old ground, there is no way that either the Warriors or Knights can be expected to compete with a Lightning side over half of whom hold "A" contracts and therefore play cricket for a living. They can practice or play when and where they want and neither of the northern sides have anything close to that luxury. And it showed.

I had a really pleasant afternoon in the company of some of the Knights' people on Tuesday and while we didn't agree on everything, they too felt it had been difficult to compete with an almost full time professional outfit.

Many observers have been suggesting that the Warriors are out of their depth against the other two Unions however the facts point out otherwise. In the one-dayers and three-dayers there has been precious little between the two northern teams and both have been equally heavily beaten by Leinster.

More frustratingly for Bobby Rao and his back-room team is that two of the NCU's biggest players in the tournament could, and some would argue should, be playing on the other side. Such are the fine margins, however it is really pleasing to note that the North West have taken their experiences to date and are now planning to do something about them.

Negotiations are well under way for a Warriors and Junior Warriors training camp this coming winter and that is a fantastic development for the North West. Union officials are currently working behind the scenes to ensure that resources are made available to Bobby and a coaching team that will see possibly two under-age teams and the senior panel benefiting from regular sessions throughout the close season.

The fact that the North West is buying into this totally despite a poor run of results is exactly the response that was required and it will now be up to the players selected to show a similar commitment to the programme.

And on that topic I have no doubt that the North West will continue to back the Warriors coaches and selectors as they build on the theme of introducing inexperienced players into the squad. There has been some cynical (and as usual, anonymous) criticism of the players brought in but most people are delighted to see players like Jason Milligan, Dean McCarter, Andy McBrine, Ricky-Lee Dougherty and Gareth Burns getting their chance beyond club cricket.

These people might also like to remember that Niall McDonnell, Johnny Thompson, Andy Britton and Andrew Riddles have had little or no representative experience and are all people who work outside cricket for a living. It is totally unfair to be comparing chips with chocolate.

I can only speak for one person but I believe that the North West are doing this right. Absolutely no doubt that some personnel tweaks will happen as they always do, but the principle is spot on. We take a poor first year, work on it over the winter and improve on it in 2014 and the same thing again in the 12 months after that.

When I interviewed Bobby after he got the Head Coach job his very first sentence was about the fact that this wasn't about today or tomorrow but about putting mechanisms in place to help the North West make inroads into narrowing the gap. He has put his money where his mouth is and has already done dozens of hours of coaching over his contracted quota and he shows no signs of stopping either.

We now need to back him with the same commitment.