LEEDS KNIGHTS COACH RYAN ALDRIDGE LOOKING TO BUILD CONFIDENCE FOR NIHL NATIONAL PLAY-OFFS

RYAN ALDRIDGE is anticipating a competitive weekend for his Leeds Knights team as they gear up ready for the NIHL National play-offs.

The 2023-24 league champions welcome Solway Sharks to Elland Road on Friday night before ending their regular season campaign on the road at Yorkshire rivals, Hull Seahawks on Sunday.

Hull are assured of fourth spot in the table and will join Leeds in play-off Group A along with eighth-placed Bees IHC and whoever from Peterborough Phantoms or Telford Tigers finish in fifth spot this weekend.

For the Seahawks, it will be the first of two derby visits to Elland Road in six days as they also take on Leeds in the post-season opener next Friday.

Solway head down south of the border to West Yorkshire having missed out on the post-season in their first-ever NIHL National campaign.

In reality, they have little to play for, but Knights’ head coach Ryan Aldridge believes they will want to end their debut campaign in the second-tier on a high - especially if they can bloody the nose of the league champions in the process.

“Friday (against Solway) is big for me,” insisted Aldridge, whose team completed a head-to-head series sweep against Sheffield Steeldogs last weekend..

“It’s about getting confidence in our building against a good team. Hopefully they will come here and want to finish their season on a high. As we saw last week, it can be tough to get players up for a game that doesn’t mean that much

“Then, against Hull, it is about getting out of there and the weekend as a whole, injury-free and without any major suspensions or penalties.

“I’m sure the players will be thinking the same because they will want to take some good form and confidence into that first play-off weekend against Hull and go on from there.”

2024-03-29T06:46:31Z dg43tfdfdgfd