Leeds Knights 2 warned to expect tough test at Widnes Wild
AFTER picking up six points out of six against Sheffield Scimitars last weekend, Leeds Knights 2 boss Davey Lawrence is expecting another tough test at Widnes Wild on Sunday.
Widnes hold almost the exact same record as Knights, and Lawrence is aware that Widnes’ home form this season is exceptional.
“They've been pushing teams really close,” he said. “They will be a difficult team to beat, especially on home ice. It's a strange place to play as well, it's slightly smaller. They seem to do a lot better on home ice than they do when they're on the road.
“We have to go in there with a mentality that it’s going to be a tight game, it’s going to be a tough game and we’re going to have to work for everything that we get.”
Knights 2 will be missing key players though. Lawrence added: “We are short-benched again this weekend quite heavily, probably the shortest we’ve been all year through a mixture of injuries and guys not being available.
“So it’s going to be a long night with a short bench, but it doesn’t change the outlook of what we’re trying to do here and trying to steal points.”
After last weekend’s double success against Sheffield, Lawrence believes the NIHL North 1 table is opening up for them.
“I think going into the weekend, we should have expected to beat them [Sheffield], maybe not by the margin we did on Saturday but we should have expected to beat them all the same,” added Lawrence.
“More so, from a confidence and a morale point of view, a six-point weekend’s pretty big. And it sets us up nicely for this next run of games. But it pulls us into that foot race in mid-table – where if we can keep putting points on the board you could be in a pretty nice position after that.
“And then it’s about us trying to hold on to that and work our way through that. The big thing this year, we’re always trying to improve on last year. We finished eighth last year so seventh would be an improvement this year.”