Steutel, Eagles seeking SLB Trophy glory: “I’m desperate for winning”

Friday night’s SLB Cup quarter-final matchup between the Newcastle Eagles and London Lions also served as a pre-cursor to next Sunday’s SLB Trophy final, held at the Utilita Arena Birmingham.

In this contest, it was the Lions who took a 94-68 victory to give them a boost of confidence ahead of the final.

The Eagles are Britain’s most decorated club are looking to go back-to-back after defeating Bristol Flyers in the final of last season’s edition of the Trophy.

However, they face the nation’s leading team. The Lions have now beaten Newcastle four times this season and are eyeing up a domestic sweep.

While the Eagles are on a seven-game losing streak that they will look to snap against KK Dubrava in ENBL action on Tuesday night, their last game before the final.

Following Friday’s game, Eagles head coach, Marc Steutel, looked ahead to Sunday’s showdown.

He told Hoopsfix: “‘Obviously we’re going through a rough patch at the minute. The trophy is in the building upstairs and hopefully the guys get to see that this week.

“I think the build-up to a final is always exciting. I think it’s a chance to come in and really be fresh mentally.

“Our history of winning is there but the league has moved on. It’s a super competitive league. I’m talking to people in Europe this week and they’re so impressed about the competitiveness of our league.

“We want to win. I want to win. I’m desperate for winning. I’ve always educated our players on the history of our club and the heritage of our club.’

“We played incredible basketball to get (to the final). We know that we have a massive task on our hands but that’s the exciting thing, trying to make sure that you can go and overcome the odds and see what you can do.

“We know we have to be at our best, I respect this team but whatever we do let’s make sure we come out punching.”

With the two sides facing off so close to the marquee game, it was always going to add a psychological edge to the Trophy final.

Steutel added: “Our preparation has to be focused on us.

“This team (Lions) is really difficult to play against and they probably feel as though they match up really well against us in particular.

“The proximity to the final is probably a psychological consideration, I think, where if it was the game from three weeks ago maybe that was a little bit out of recent memory.”

In early January, London beat the Eagles 76-50 in the North-East.

Steutel said: “It’s definitely something where they feel like (they’ve had) two convincing games against us. I feel better after today’s game than I did after the game a few weeks ago.

“Some of the areas we wanted to focus on we were better at. It’s going to take a lot of character, a lot of will and a lot of desire.

“Their team is built to compete in the Euro cup. It’s a difficult challenge for us but it’s a day that we’re going to go and relish and see what happens.

“I don’t want to say too much tactically, but they hurt us a lot in the last game in a couple of areas that I thought we did a better job tactically of taking away but then they hurt us with new areas today, where they didn’t exploit as much last time.

“They’re a good basketball team so we’ve got to try and make sure that we’re at 99.9% of our efficiency and we’ve got to try and stop them.”

The SLB Trophy tips off at 3:30, Sunday 1 st February.