Tony Holley today called on Brighton Bears' supporting cast to help the club to their second major prize of the season.

The stand-in skipper leads his men out as underdogs for the BBL Trophy final against in-form Newcastle Eagles at the Brighton Centre on Sunday (3pm).

Eagles have the deepest team in the country, the proof coming when their bench men accounted for half their points in last Saturday's 82-79 league win at the Triangle.

Now Holley wants Bears' role players to match that in support of high-scoring stars like Cheyne Gadson and Andrew Alleyne.

The 37-year-old, 13-year veteran and three-time Trophy winner is not afraid to class himself among the supporting cast.

He said: "The ability is there and the team spirit is there. We're just too inconsistent. We win one lose one, we've got to get away from that.

"Nick (Nurse) has watched the tape of last week's game seven times and we've watched it twice. Each time I watched it, it got worse.

"We've got to rebound better and we've got to do something about their role players.

"Andrew Bridge, Fab Flournoy and Darius Defoe got about 20 points between them. Compare it to our role players. Ronnie (Baker) had three points, Radhi (Knapp) had five, I had five.

"We're not far off. We're not losing by huge margins. It's one or two points with the exception of Leicester where we got outplayed."

Holley will be delighted to take some of the heat off Gadson, who arrived as replacement for Ryan Huntley and has found himself also having to cover for injured captain Yorick Williams.

Holley said: "Cheyne has come in playing at a different level and we've all gone backwards. I think we need to bring our game to where he is now. Mentally we haven't been there for the last three weeks.

"All season long, though, when we've had to come up with a victory, we've played like people expect us to play. We went to Chester with our backs against the wall and beat them by 19."

Question marks over Gadson's influence are unreasonable, given he has only played two quarters of basketball alongside Williams, the man who was supposed to be his sidekick.

Coach Nurse said: "Cheyne is an easy target. If Yorick was alongside him, his job would be a lot easier.

"At the same time, Cheyne, by his own admission can do better. He can defend better, rebound better and insist on us executing on offence."

Nurse was at his motivational best at training in midweek. An afternoon meeting on Wednesday meant he turned up for practice in a suit and smart shoes.

The Coach Carter look he called it. Those shoes certainly helped him make his point as he stamped his feet in annoyance when players got something wrong.

He insisted: "We've got to play better. That starts defensively. We need to take things away from them.

"We've always been good at getting back on defence and taking away team's early options. That didn't happen last week. Newcastle were comfortable all night long.

"I take responsibility for not having them prepared, not giving them individual scouting reports or enough breakdown of exactly where they are moving and trying to do."

Bears hope vocal backing will help them through on what is a huge day for Sussex basketball. Worthing Thunder defend the National Trophy against City of Sheffield at 1pm.

The crowd is likely to head towards the 4,000 figure last reached when the Harlem Globetrotters were in town, though some tickets will be available on the day.