Sharks miss Lyons and Reinking

Sheffield Sharks will be without player-coach Atiba Lyons and Great Britain international Nate Reinking for their BBL Trophy semi-final second leg against Newcastle Eagles.

Lyons picked up a one-match ban from the BBL following his ejection in last week’s game, while veteran Reinking is still missing with a knee injury, sustained when team mate Colin Sing landed on him during the league game against the Eagles three weeks ago.

Sheffield face a tough task if they are to make it through to the BBL Trophy final, having lost the first leg 116-84.

The Eagles, meanwhile, are in an ominous position, and are heavy favourites to set up a repeat of the BBL Cup Final against Plymouth in the trophy final.

Captain Andrew Bridge said: “If we prepare properly, play solidly and do what we should do, we’ll reach the final. Whether we win the game on Friday remains to be seen, but we need to go out on the court and play hard.

“I believe if you go out and try to avoid injury, that’s when you get hurt, so we need to play our normal game. We won’t be taking Sharks for granted, they’re a good team and they just found themselves in weird situation last week. We’ve beaten them a few times this season, but I think they just ran into a couple of our better performances.

“I guess the younger players will get some court time but they’ll have to earn it in practice, maybe it won’t happen in the first half, but if we’ve got the game under control in the second I imagine they’ll play.”