Newcastle Eagles play-caller Fab Flournoy has hailed the firepower of One Health Sharks Sheffield ahead of the teams’ crunch meeting tonight at the EIS as the clubs meet for the third time this season with both having won their respective home games against each other in the BBL Trophy.

Flournoy and his players are under real pressure heading into the match-up against their potential title rivals as they look to avoid a fourth successive BBL Championship road loss.

“Sheffield’s strength is that their five starters could all average 20 points per game in this league without needing the ball too much. This makes them a very fluent offensive team.” explained Flournoy.

“Then they have an excellent defensive player in Atiba coming off the bench. They are probably the most potent offensive team in the league at the moment.”

His counterpart Atiba Lyons is buoyed by the midweek success at Guildford Heat but nevertheless, he counteracted the compliments of Flournoy by confessing his team will have to play well to avoid succumbing to the defence of the visitors.

He said, “The Eagles are a very smart basketball team and are good at capitalising on turnovers and second chance points.”

“Also defensively they use different schemes like fronting the post and trapping the baseline so we need to play smart and be aggressive. “