SWINDON suffered a 95-84 defeat when they made the trip to Newport on Sunday for their final league match of the season before the play-offs get under way at the weekend.

Both teams had a number of first-team regulars missing from their line-ups but, nevertheless, both fought hard throughout, with Newport leading by three going into the break.

Newport, as always, were led by the faultless Mark Carmichael, who went unbeaten all afternoon despite being on borrowed equipment.

For Swindon, Jake Neighbour looked as solid as he has done all year, while Rob Hunt only dropped a few points throughout the meeting.

Alice Neighbour stepped up to the Swindon first team at short notice and claimed an excellent tapes-to-flag victory mid-meeting to help limit the damage on Swindon at that stage.

The upcoming play-off final between Swindon, Poole and Newport takes place at Southampton in a winner-takes-all clash.