Leeds Knights answering Ryan Aldridge's plea to find more ways to score

Two weeks ago, Leeds Knights’ head coach Ryan Aldridge complained that he was only getting scoring from one line and that it had to change. It has.

The line of Matt Barron, Matt Bissonnette and Matt Haywood was dominating teams, both their own and that of most opponents.

After mixing things up in terms of line combinations failed to provide the spark for other players that he had hoped, Aldridge still stuck with it.

The last three games have seen him and his team rewarded.

After a slow start to the campaign – at least by his standards – Brown came alive last weekend, scoring five goals and three assists, increasing his tally by a third in just two games.

The Knights’ captain’s most notable contribution came as he spearheaded a comeback from 3-0 down at home to Swindon Wildcats, finishing with four goals and an assist on Barron’s game-winning strike.

Brown was at it again in Saturday’s 8-2 hammering of a short-benched Berkshire Bees at The Castle, scoring a hat-trick and one assist. It took him past the 450-point mark for the team. A tally reached in just over three seasons.

It was also a positive night for Mac Howlett, ending a four-game pointless streak with two goals, plus an assist on Haywood’s 45th-minute strike.

For the record Fin Bradon – enjoying another season of major development – scored the other goal on what was a three-point night for him.

Aldridge won’t get carried away with the increase in scoring options, but it was something which left him delighted ahead of Sunday’s trip to a Peterborough Phantoms team hammered 9-2 at Swindon.

“It was good,” beamed Aldridge. “We got two lines scoring which we haven’t had for a while, so that’s a massive positive for us and we got to run four lines all night which is another positive.

“We scored eight goals and came away relatively injury-free, so I’m happy.

“The team performance is what matters. We’re a young group, everything’s personal and we’ve got to mature and grow out of that.

"The league is different, we can’t play and dominate teams like we used to.”