Bears' win in their first ever Championship match at the Triangle, Burgess Hill, made up for their 84-78 defeat by the same opponents at Brentwood last month and gave the club back-to-back victories for the first time for 20 months.

Scantlebury said: "We owed Leopards this game and we were fired up.

"It was a rough start and we were a bit up and down at times, but the pleasing thing was that we came together at the right time towards the end and came out with a win.

"I don't think the referees had a very good game for both teams. Leopards' Robert Youngblood fouled out towards the end which helped us, and the key for us was that we kept playing hard all the way through."

Bears' victory, their fourth in seven league and cup games, means they have already equalled the entire number of wins achieved last season and Scantlebury believes the early signs are good.

He said: "We said in the summer that we would compete this year and our coach, Charles Luke-Bannerman, is doing a good job.

"Charles has got the guys pretty much as he wanted. He and Mark Dunning worked us really hard in pre-season and that has helped us out now."

Scantlebury, a widely experienced former England forward, is particularly pleased that Bears have got five or six players who can all score and, now that Jon Gaines is coming back from injury, they are in good shape.

He added: "Last year it was really only Jon who was scoring, now once we start playing defence, we're tough to stop because everyone can score at the other end."

Bears' win delighted coach Bannerman, who declared: "Anyone who comes to Sussex is going to have a hard job to beat us.

"The guys are going out and playing hard, which is what they are meant to do. It bodes well for a decent season. At the moment things are beginning to fall quite well."

Leopards' defeat, their third in four Championship games, puts them four points adrift at the bottom of the Southern Conference and coach Billy Mims stormed off court

in a rage afterwards.

The American was furious that Bears, 88-79 ahead, had called a time out with 15 seconds left and were then given possession of the ball due to a refereeing mistake.

Mims, annoyed at inconsistent calls during the game, stood and stared at the Brighton bench during the time out and exchanged angry words with Bannerman at the finish. As Bears did not have possession they had to call a time out in order to get Stuart Newman into the game and Bannerman insisted: "It was just one of those situations.

"Billy Mims must have misunderstood what the circumstances were. It's something he has to deal with.

"The reason I called the time out was purely to get Stuart Newman in. For some unknown reason the referees then gave us the ball. They are in control from that perspective."

Bears, who trailed 43-38 at half-time after being 25-15 behind after the first quarter, out-scored their opponents 51-36 in the second half and also out-rebounded them 44-34.

Brighton Bears: Trojanowski 19, Claxton 15, Sharp 15, Scantlebury 15, Gaines 14, Brown 9, Hildreth 2.

London Leopards: Johnson 25, Brantley 21, Capers 16, Youngblood 10, Deppisch 4, Mathurin 3.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.