Leeds Knights 1 Hull Seahawks 5 (agg: 4-9): Matty Davies hails 'unbelievable' group after reaching NIHL National Cup final

In the end, the feared push back from Leeds never really materialised in the second leg of the semi-final tie at Elland Road Ice Arena on Friday night, after Hull had edged the first encounter on home ice 4-3 two nights earlier.

The Seahawks had already won in Leeds just before Christmas with an impressive 4-2 victory in the league.

But their 5-1 win over Ryan Aldridge’s team was on a different level and one that was fully deserved with Leeds having no argument over the 9-4 aggregate scoreline.

The Knights were second-best all night and will have to quickly pick themselves up for another home assignment on Saturday night when they welcome Raiders IHC in the league.

The Seahawks, meanwhile, will now wait to see who they will play in the two-leg final with Swindon Wildcats and Milton Keynes Lightning – both teams they have already beaten – settle their semi-final next Thursday.

First period goals from Brock Bartholomew - jamming the puck home withg only 77 seconds having gone - and Lee Bonner with a deflection in front on the power play at 16.46, put the Knights on the backfoot from the start. It was a critical situation from which they never came close to recovering from.

It got worse early in the second when Finlay Ulrick was cleverly set up by the quickly influential Owen Sobchak to make it 3-0 on the night and leave the hosts trailing 7-3 overall.

Hope briefly came early in the third when Matt Barron finished off from a neat feed from captain Kieran Brown as part of a five-minute power play the Knights were handed at the end of the second period after Lee Bonner was ejected for a check to the head on Jordan Griffin.

But the Knights had found it difficult to create clear-cut chances all night – their failure to capitalise on a minute-long 5-on-3 powerplay in the second period just another example of their struggles on the night.

Their inability to prise open the Seahawks defence often enough came back to haunt them and their plight deepened when Emil Svec finished off a scintillating tic-tac-toe move involving Sobchak and Bobby Chamberlain at 47.50.

Insult was added to injury when Sam Towner’s deflected effort found a way past Gospel 31 seconds later to make it 5-1 on the night.

“For us as a club and everything we’ve been through in the past not even two years - it’s just great to see everyone so happy after how much we’ve put into this,” said a beaming Davies afterwards.

“I’m just really proud of the lads tonight for the work that they put in. To a man, again, they were unbelievable, the work ethic and the way they were willing to buy in. They did everything I asked of them.

“Make no mistake, Leeds are brilliant, they can always score, they are a really dangerous team and they will probably win the league.

“But, for us, we came here tonight with a plan to make it hard for them and we did just that. “And we’ve got some really good players in our team this year and they have come to the fore this week - they are very special.”

Ryan Aldridge was left to reflect on a second year running where his team had come up short in the National Cup, but admitted they were second best on both nights. But they remain well-placed to retain both their league and play-off titles.

He was forced to play the tie without defenceman Dylan Hehir and import forward Jake Witkowski who were both suspended, but there were no excuses from the Leeds coach.

Witkowski has been banned for six games for an illegal check to the head in the 3-2 win over Milton Keynes Lightning on January 26. The club were made aware of the ban privately but, ridiculously, England Ice Hockey – form some reason the new name for governing body the England Ice Hockey Association EIHA) – failed to announce the ban publicly until Friday evening.

"They were the better team over both nights,” admitted Aldridge on his team’s failure to deal with the Seahawks. “They wanted it more, they were hungrier. They outbattled us in all areas, they were better in front of both nets – we just weren’t good enough.

“We just weren’t with it the past two nights, we haven’t been with it for three or four weeks now to be honest with you. I’m not quite sure whether we’re tired or whether we think it’s just going to happen for us.

"We have to understand that teams aren’t going to let it just work out and, this week, Hull didn’t I thought they were outstanding. They were first to every 50-50 puck, they outbattled us even when we had the puck.

"We talked about net fronts, the game was going to be won in the front of the nets and it was – Gossy didn’t stand a chance with any of their goals.”