Another weekend and another double-header for Head Coach Marc Steutel and his Newcastle Eagles. On Sunday they go to Manchester Basketball to take on the North West outfit in a SLB Championship encounter.

But before that they host the Bristol Flyers on Friday night in the Vertu Arena. Also a SLB Championship match-up it’s another crucial game as Steutel’s charges look to bounce back to winning ways.

Last weekend they lost both of their league games against London Lions at home and then on Sunday away at Cheshire Phoenix. Results that have Steutel is keen to put behind his team as they look to climb up the standings.

“It’s an important weekend coming up. Seeing Bristol for the second time I feel we’ve developed a lot since we saw them earlier in the season. So I’m excited to go and measure ourselves against them.”

“Then and then seeing Manchester for the first time on Sunday in the middle of January which from a scheduling standpoint is crazy. I hope these things are looked because I feel that there is a lot of high-level talent in the game.”

“We all want to see that talent playing well for as long as we can. That’s ultimately what players, coaches and fans’ goals is.”

So, in the sporting world to use the cliché, ‘it’s one game at a time starting with the Flyers at home. Flyers a team that had been going well but have lost four of their last five in the Championship but still boast an eight wins eight loss record.

They also won in midweek in Latvia in the ENBL beating Valmeria Glass 106-91 on Tuesday to move to a 3 wins 4 losses record in that competition taking them into the qualifying spots for play-offs.

So, as Steutel pointed out, Bristol are a very talented team that represent a significant challenge for his side to tip-off another round of challenging fixtures.

“Bristol are a tough physical team. We need to make sure we’re prepared for them and what they bring. We have to understand what their dangers are and how we can work as best we can to try and slow them down.”

“We have to do all that we can do hopefully get a much-needed win at home in front of our loyal fans on Friday and get ourselves back to winning ways.”

It won’t be easy as Bristol did beat the Eagles last time out at the Vertu Arena 87-83 in a really close fought encounter. A reversal of that result is what Newcastle are looking for to take some real momentum into the Manchester game on Sunday.

Tip-off for the SLB Championship game at the Vertu Arena on Friday night is at the usual time of 7:30pm.