Brighton Bears captain Randy Duck is ready to wipe out the double disappointment of last weekend by winning at Thames Valley.

Bears have only once suffered three successive defeats on the road since coach Nick Nurse took charge more than two years ago.

That proud boast will come to an end if they go down in Bracknell on Saturday in the opening game of their BBL Trophy qualifying group, which also includes Plymouth.

Bears have lost at London Towers and Sheffield on their last two away trips but Duck's assessment of last weekend might still surprise some fans.

Sunday's controversial defeat in a BBL Cup tie at Sheffield, in which Nurse was ejected, was clearly a body blow but Saturday saw them beat old title rivals Chester Jets in an overtime thriller.

The Bears skipper, though, insisted: "We went to overtime with a team we should never have been close with and I'm not going to comment on our game at Sheffield because I don't think that had anything to do with what we did on the floor, that had to do with something else.

"It's not okay to just beat the teams we should beat. I want to beat every team and I think we're taking the right steps this week.

"I would expect us to play a lot better than we have in the last couple of weeks. In practice we are taking some pretty good steps.

"Losing hurts and I think a few of these guys are starting to realise a lot of people around here take it very personally.

"They are starting to pick up their intensity levels in practice and I think you'll see a better team on Saturday."

Bears were certainly pretty intense at their Falmer base yesterday as they used up every minute of available practice court time.

Part of the session was a five-on-five tussle which would have graced any BBL court as Duck, Mike Brown, Rico Alderson, Tom Frederick and Kendrick Warren took on Sullivan Phillips, Yorick Williams, Andy Gardiner, Andrew Alleyne and Jason Siemon.

Frederick stole the show with a dunk on a fast break while Nurse made a point of blowing for fouls he felt would be given by a fussy match referee.

Bears will be looking for the likes of Alleyne, who has been in fine form of late, to continue in that vein with improvements in other areas.

Siemon and Gardiner, for example, have been quiet, with the latter missing his last 17 three-point attempts.

The otherwise excellent Warren will offer defenders even fewer options to stop him if he improves on free throw figures of four-for-21 in the last five games.