The Newcastle Eagles fly into Friday’s Super League Basketball Championship encounter at home in The Vertu Arena against Surrey 89ers desperately looking for a win to end their current losing streak.

The Eagles last played a week ago also at home to Sheffield Sharks and despite leading by 13-points with a quarter and a half to go couldn’t seal the deal and slipped to a 99 – 95 defeat. Head Coach Marc Steutel cutting a frustrated figure at the end of a game that his side controlled for long periods.

So, it was back to the drawing board once again this week as Steutel, his assistant Roberto Fois and the players got back on the practice court to prepare for the arrival of Surrey. The 89ers come into Newcastle on the back of a great away win at Caledonia last weekend by 93 – 76.

That raised their league record to 3 wins 3 loses and they sit 5^th in the standings. Newcastle meanwhile sit 8^th with a 2-win 6 loss record but more worryingly have lost eight games in a row in all competitions.

Steutel assessed the mood in his camp as they approach another crucial almost must win game.

“It’s a difficult balance of trying to keep everyone positive in terms of working in the right way each and every day. The group have done that and been really professional. The mood though is that everyone is hurting.”

“They are not in a situation they wanted to be in and not in a situation they expected to be in. But we are where we are. There’s no crying or complaining over it. We just have to make sure we work in a way is conducive to changing our fortunes.”

“I’m confident we’re doing that and working the right way. They’re a really professional group, really committed and we have to get some confidence in difficult moments. That’s literally everything and if we do that I’m confident we can start changing our outcomes.”

Turning to Surrey, Steutel gave his thoughts on them as a side and what he feels his side are up against as well as what he’s looking towards to help his side get that all-important win.

“Surrey are a good basketball team. They’re skilled have clear strengths on certain parts of their roster. We’ve done a good job of preparing for that this week. We have to limit key elements of their game defensively and if we do that it’ll give our offence a chance to flow.”

“Both of those things are key. Limit them and then exploit some of the areas we think we can do with our personnel and some of the matchups we think we can attack. We have to be really consistent over 40 minutes.”

“Play our pace play our way. Trust each other in difficult moments and hopefully make enough plays down the stretch to win.”

Fighting talk from a Coach that never takes a backward step and drives his team on to do the same. With a visit to league leaders and unbeaten London Lions to come on Sunday perhaps Friday’s game takes on even more importance.

A win would send The Eagles to the Capital in a much brighter and confident state of mind before the international break next weekend. Tip-off at The Vertu Arena on Friday night is as usual at 7:30pm.