Newcastle Eagles are on the road this Sunday in Scotland. They face the Caledonia Gladiators in a crucial SLB Championship encounter at the Playsport Arena. Last time out Newcastle lost heavily at home 120-93 to Manchester.

Head Coach Marc Steutel began his preview by outlining how the group have prepared for Sunday’s game.

“Preparation has been positive. We’ve had a chance to review some areas that we wanted to and try and continue to get better within our own kind of identity and our own areas of play.”

“Then obviously focus on Caledonia’s strengths and how they’ve been successful against us in the games where we’ve seen them so far. We want to make sure we get better at that.”

Given that the Eagles currently sit in the last play-off place, eighth in the standings and Caledonia are a place below them it could be considered a ‘must-win’ game. Coach Steutel’s take on that is slightly different.

“Where we are at every game has a level of importance. It’s good that the intensity of every game now not just with ourselves but across the League has that play-off kind of feel about it. We understand where we are at and we understand the importance of the game.”

“We know what we need to do and what we want to do to make sure we have the best end to the season that we can.”

The regular season is now heading at pace to the end and thoughts are turning to play-off basketball. Right now, most teams know each other very well as Steutel explained.

“At this stage minus a few new additions that are obviously popping up around the League in terms of teams announcing some signings I don’t think there are too many surprises in store.”

“It’s understanding who each team is and how they want to be successful and what you can try and limit that and try to slow that down.”

Caledonia are not having the best of seasons and are currently the one side out of the play-off places at the bottom of the standings. But they have won a couple of games against Leicester recently and do have home court advantage. Steutel referred to that issue.

“Playsport is a difficult place to play for visitors. Its always loud in there and you struggle to build consistency with communication. We know we’re in for a tough challenge like you are at any single game on the road in this league.”

“We’re excited to hear that there’s a lot of really positive Newcastle support going north. They’ll be much needed in that situation.”

Finally, as always, the Eagles play-caller gave his thoughts on what he believes to be the keys to the game and how his side can come through with an important victory.

“We’ve got to try and make sure that we play our game and allow them to play theirs. They’ve got talented personnel who we’ve seen on multiple times. We’ve got to try to limit key personnel.”

“We want to take pride in our execution and be really purposeful with our execution on both sides of the ball and hopefully that’ll give us the blue print to get a much-needed win.”

The game at The Playsport Arena, East Kilbride tips-off at 4pm and it is going to be another intriguing battle between two fierce rivals that always give each other their best shots.

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