Leeds Knights boss Ryan Aldridge striving to help get work-play balance right for players

Yes, they get to play the sport they clearly love and, in various cases, some can earn a decent living from it.

But, for the majority of players in NIHL, they combine playing and training with full-time work - no easy task, particularly when there are midweek games thrown into the schedule.

This week sees Leeds Knights handed games on Tuesday and Wednesday, both of them on the road.

Tuesday night sees them make the relatively short trip to South Yorkshire for a sixth and final meeting of the regular season with Sheffield Steeldogs.

As was the case on Friday night when the Steeldogs got the better of the Knights at Elland Road with a 3-2 win - at the seventh time of asking in all competitions this season - expect no quarter to be given.

Wednesday, however, brings a much longer journey, returning to Romford to take on a Raiders IHC team they hammered 9-0 at the same venue on Sunday night.

Getting home at 2am in the morning is a regular feature of weekend road trips for hockey players, but in midweek there is clearly a bigger impact on those expected to work that day, the effect even greater for those that have already done as close to a full day’s work as possible before heading off to a game.

Knights’ head coach Ryan Aldridge has played and coached at the second-tier level for more than 15 years and has seen and done it all - but his players’ work commitments have to be factored in when it comes to game-time management, particularly with a schedule that, by the time the final buzzer sounds at the end of another daunting road trip to Basingstoke Bison on Sunday, will have put his players through six games in 10 days.

“One of the issues that arises at times like this are some of the guys’ work commitments - half this team have full-time jobs,” said Aldridge.

“This sort of intense schedule in such a short space of time is going to be tough on the bodies, particularly for those guys that do building or manual work. Even those doing office-based work, it is tiring on the brain, their minds, so you have to take all of that into account.

“It’s easy for people to forget that a lot of players at this level also have full-time jobs and there are some nights, especially in midweek games, where a particular guy isn’t playing at 100 per cent - but that might be because he was also digging holes at 8 o’clock that morning.

“So you have to be aware of that as a coach and it’s about balancing game workloads for each and every player as best you can.

"You’ve got to at least understand and respect what they do for work but also what they come and do for us on top of that.”

Sunday’s win in Romford, regardless of its emphatic nature, wasn’t enough for Leeds to return to the top of the standings, leaving them going into tonight’s derby clash one point adrift of leaders Milton Keynes Lightning and a point ahead of third-placed Peterborough Phantoms.

They have three games in hand on both their title rivals but, of course, after tomorrow’s return trip to Romford, they will then have just the one.

It makes the next 48 hours perhaps the most critical juncture in the Knights’ season so far, with two wins obviously giving them a significant advantage over their closest foes.

Before Sunday’s trip to Basingstoke, they also have a home match to squeeze in on Saturday against Telford Tigers.

The defending champions have had a poor season so far and are battling to make the play-offs, but will head to West Yorkshire on the back of a welcome three-game winning streak.