SECOND-PLACED TCS Chester Jets host BBL Championship table-toppers Westfield Sharks Sheffield tonight in the BBL Trophy.

It was unbelievably tight between the two sides in the group stages of the same competition last season.

They had identical records but Chester went through - and of course on to win the competition - by a solitary point after they won by 23 at home but lost by 22 at Sheffield.

Paul Smith is relishing his first match-up as Jets' head coach with the Sharks.

'I'm really looking forward to it. We've had some great games with Sheffield over the last couple years so we're looking for another good one tonight.

'Obviously, they are the team to beat at the moment. They are very well organised and very well coached. They've got some good athletes and it is difficult to find a weakness.'

Smith's men go into this game on the back of a four-game winning streak.

'It wasn't looking good when we lost three in a row, but it feels much better when you win four on the run.

'We are starting to push the ball now. We're playing a Chester Jets type of game and the team we recruited was for that purpose, to push the ball and run.

'That first month we didn't really do that, but now we've started to do it and we've had some old-style Chester Jets runs - we had a 24-2 run against Leicester and a 25-6 at Birmingham, and they are the type of runs that we used to have to break games open.'

Despite his side's great form of late, Smith knows the group is going to be so tight that defeat isn't an option.

'I think last season's pool proved that even when you win by 23 at home, the job still isn't done!

'Both teams can score a bunch of points very, very quickly. It is important to win but regardless of what happens tonight, it won't be over, it will go to the last seconds of the last game, I would imagine.' Smith knows the strength of the Sheffield side. He added: 'Teamwork is the ethos that Chris Finch (the former Sharks coach) seemed to have started and Scants (current coach Peter Scantlebury) is obviously carrying on.

'They're very much an all-round team, but if you were to ask me to pick one player then I think Nate Reinking is the guy making them tick. He is shooting the ball very well and I've seen him a couple of times. He's all energy and is having probably his best season so far.'