Leeds Force: I said we'd shoot down Eagles and we did '“ Rob Marsden

I'm not one to brag or anything but what did I say last week? We are going to send shockwaves through the league and boy did we.
Jack Isenbarger. PIC: Simon HallJack Isenbarger. PIC: Simon Hall
Jack Isenbarger. PIC: Simon Hall

Beating the Newcastle Eagles for the first time was amazing. What a game it was and what a way to end our losing run.

I don’t think many people gave us a chance of beating them, after all they were the league leaders and recent BBL Cup winners.

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We knew they are a good side but so are we. We ran them really close earlier in the season when they came down.

We were up by 12 points that day but they came back so we knew they could be got at and that gave us confidence.

The whole team were playing well. I thought against Surrey the week before a lot of things clicked but we couldn’t get the win down there.

We had to be at our best to beat Newcastle and I think we were for the majority of the game.

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The start we had was one of the things I was most pleased about. We are not known for having fast starts and if we hadn’t had a fast start on Friday it would have been a different story.

We held the lead for the majority of the first half and we played some really good basketball, moving the ball quickly around the court, defending strongly, and our transition play was strong.

Jack (Isenbarger) behind the arc killed it for us. They were flying in, not even off the back board, straight in. Some of them were unbelievable but that’s what we have come to expect from him.

They did claw it back right at the end of the half but we didn’t let our heads drop, we kept at our game plan and boy did it work.

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I have to say the noise in the arena was deafening, it really was. We could hardly hear what the coach was saying sometimes. It was electric.

We enjoyed that win but we had to get that out of our heads quite quickly as we had to make the trip down to Plymouth on Sunday.

That was a different type of game to the one on Friday. We had to be smart with the ball and keep the scoreboard ticking over.

Jack (Isenbarger) again could hardly miss behind the arc. He bailed us out of a few situations when they were starting to pull away.

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We battled hard; it would have been amazing to come out of the weekend with two wins but we may have felt the effects of Friday towards the end of the game.

I don’t think they were 10 points better than us but the scoreline says they were.

On a personal level, my game felt like it came together this weekend in both games. Getting a double double on Friday and Sunday was pleasing.

I felt strong, fit and made good contributions offensively as well as defensively to help the team whenever I could.

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I hope last weekend can be a springboard for us now and we can put a good run of wins together and shoot up the table.

Now we are focusing on Bristol and how we can put in the same performance against them as we did against Newcastle. If we can do that then I don’t think any team in the league can handle us.

A major part of that win was the crowd, so if we can get the same crowd in again it will really spur us on.

After all ... WE ARE FORCE!