Marc Steutel will assess his walking wounded ahead of this afternoon’s regular season finale — with Newcastle Eagles struggling to put out a starting five at Cheshire Phoenix.

The men in black must avoid defeat by 13 points or more against Larry Austin Jr’s men to cling on to fifth spot and set up a playoff quarter-final against Manchester Basketball next Friday.

But Newcastle are down to the bare bones after key men dropped like flies throughout Friday’s brutal loss to Leicester.

Darius Defoe, Josh Ward-Hibbert and Cole Long all limped out of the Riders’ defeat to join Seneca Knight on the sidelines.

And that leaves the Eagles stretched to the limit ahead of a traditionally tough trip to the North West.

“Before we started this weekend it was about claiming the two wins that meant we’d finish top five,” said head coach Marc Steutel. “That was the goal.

“We’ve had a bit of a run recently and we wanted to try and make sure we maintained that.

“Now we’ll have to look at the guys to see where we’re going and we have to look ahead to the playoffs and the bigger picture.

“Cheshire is going to be a different challenge now and it’s become a very different situation.

“We want to try and make sure that we get through the Phoenix game and then obviously get guys recovered for the playoffs.”

Leicester wrapped up a 106-91 win down the stretch on Friday with Newcastle forced to field just four players for the last 62 seconds.

By then an increasingly irate Steutel had been thrown out of the game on the back of a double technical.

With a foul count weighted 27-15 in Leicester’s favour — and Long rushed to hospital with a badly gashed lip after losing a tooth — Newcastle’s playcaller had every right to feel aggrieved in the face of some frankly baffling officiating.

“As somebody who’s been invested in British basketball for the best part of 20-plus years I was frustrated after a game like Leicester,” he said.

“I’ve coached at every level of the international pathway. I don’t talk about that a lot. I’ve played for my country internationally at Under 18s.

“I’ve coached England Under 15s, Under 16s, Under 18s and Under 20s. I’ve been involved with the senior men for almost eight years, working towards 50 caps with Great Britain.

“I’ve coached in Division One for six or seven years and this is my third year at the top level of British basketball.

“Our game has high-level players, high-level talent, high-level coaching, high-level organisation and high-level fans. But holistically the game needs to get better.

“Every element and every facet of the game needs to get better.

“We need to get rid of flippancy. We need to get rid of anything that isn’t about development and growth with the game.

“I always reflect — and work — on my craft. The players work on their craft. Organisationally, we work on our craft.

“We reflect on how we can get better. British basketball is respected in Europe but there’s areas of our game that are holding us back. Those areas need to improve.”

If Steutel was struggling to understand how his side finished the game with just four players — and three fresh injury worries — he nevertheless remained steadfast in his praise for Rob Paternostro’s Riders.

“Massive credit to Leicester,” he added. “To have 17 offensive rebounds proves they were really excessive in how they dominated on the glass.

“I thought that my guys tried to find solutions within the parameters of the game that, you know, we weren’t supported with.

“But I have to give credit to Leicester. I said it in the pre-game — coach Rob has done an incredible job with that team.

“It’s five rookies and, essentially, Zach Jackson who is the main guy with experience.

“Riders played good basketball and I don’t want to take anything away from their win.

“They did well to come out on the right side of that game.”