Newcastle Eagles eyeing change in off-season

When Newcastle Eagles’ coach, Fab Flournoy, finally emerged from the locker room of the BBL Play-off Final losers on Sunday, he was in no mood to discuss his side’s 68-57 loss to the Leicester Riders.

Instead, he revealed that he would look to make changes at the club and that any moves were not something that the Wembley Arena loss had prompted, but had been in discussion since the turn of the year.

“These conversations (how to improve) were happening in January and now that it’s come to the end of the season, I think that question is asked by any team, including ourselves and including Riders,” said Flournoy. “They’ll be looking to build upon what they have done and we’ll be looking to fix where things are wrong. It’s about taking stock of everything that’s already happened, where we are at, trying to see where our holes were.

“There were more – not talent holes or players abilities – it was more learning how to win and how to play.”

Any inquiries that Flournoy makes will have the support of Eagles Managing Director Paul Blake who spoke after the Play-off Final and agreed that changes needed to be made.

“We need to freshen up, we need to freshen up,” repeated Blake moments after the Eagles’ trophy-less 2012/13 season came to an end.

“We need to get smart this summer and take a good look at it all. Not throw the baby out with the bath water as they say, I don’t think there’s any reason to hugely knee-jerk, but today was a test of two relatively fit teams and we made a fight of it in the cup final but we didn’t make a fight of this (Play-off Final) to be honest.

“Last season went, at every turn, right,” continued Blake. “No injuries of any particular note. We were just hitting our peaks of performance at the right time. What I saw there tonight was a slightly less confident team, a team that’s obviously been hampered by injuries across the season.”

There was a difference of four-plus years between the average age of the Eagles’ five players who registered the most finals minutes than that of their opponents, the Leicester Riders. Second oldest on the team and third oldest in the game, Charles Smith, finished the game with 12 points and seven rebounds in 40 minutes and Blake is hopeful that Smith’s performance won’t be his final showing for the franchise.

“I fully expect that he feels he has a few seasons left in him at least and he’s Newcastle-based so he’s a no-brainer for me,” said Blake on the subject of whether 38-year old Smith will return to the Eagles for next season.

“I think it would be nice for him to see whatever remains of his career, out with the team. That may mean over a period of time, reduced minutes, as it does with any player. But he’s such an experienced guy that we want him around, we absolutely want him around.”

In recent years, the Eagles’ on-court achievements have only been matched by the off-court ability of the club to annually renew their core players (Charles, Fab, Darius and Joe) without disruption to the team’s success. But with question marks over how long ageing stars, Flournoy and Smith, can play, perhaps the greatest challenge is still to come for the Eagles as they look to replace the old guard and secure the future of the club without dropping out of the race for trophies.

Blake is a believer in the Team Northumbria Programme going forward and feels that in time, it will become a key resource for the Eagles to recruit from, however that time is not now: “We obviously run the Team Northumbria Programme and they’ve come a massive distance in a season,” praised Blake. “And really, that should be the pool of talent for the BBL team moving forward, it should be that infrastructure. It’s in place, we’ve just got to run a few cycles of it.”

Whenever the time comes for the Eagles to transition into a new era, it will be a tough task. But if there’s one team that can manage it, it’s the Newcastle Eagles.