Basketball: Peers looks to surpass Jets heights with Towers

Robbie Peers won the BBL Trophy for the last three seasons as coach of Chester Jets, but now his sights are set on breaking that sequence with his new club, London Towers.

Robbie Peers won the BBL Trophy for the last three seasons as coach of Chester Jets, but now his sights are set on breaking that sequence with his new club, London Towers.

Towers, unbeaten this year after a shaky start to the BBL campaign, must get past Brighton Bears in the first of today's semi-finals at Sheffield's Pond Forge, with the Jets, under new coach Paul Smith, squaring up to Scottish Rocks in the second game.

Peers said yesterday: "Winning it three years in a row was very special. But I've said to the players many times, your best trophy is your next one. This is the next one and we are two games away from winning it."

Bears will be run from the bench by their playmaker Randy Duck, who is out for another three weeks with a groin strain and has taken over while their "exhausted" coach Nick Nurse rests for a month.

In the First Division of the English Basketball League, the leaders Plymouth Raiders face a testing double-header against Sutton Pumas tonight, who beat them 73-59 in the National Trophy semi-finals last week, and Worthing Thunder tomorrow.

London United will try to end a run of five defeats at Brunel University against Ware Rebels, who recall centre Danny Scott after he suffered a burst appendix six weeks ago. London lost on a buzzer-beating three-pointer at Manchester Magic last weekend on John Amaechi's debut after his return from the NBA. The London assistant coach Dave Schiller said: "As long as we play with the same intensity we showed at Manchester the wins will come."