Leeds Knights short on confidence despite sitting pretty at top of the NIHL National standings

Not so the case with Leeds Knights, whose coach Ryan Aldridge says he has to find a way of getting that key, missing ingredient back into his players.

After six games, the Knights sit in their familiar position at the top of the NIHL National regular season standings. Well-placed, then, for a tilt at a third straight title.

Last season told the same story, the Knights suffering just one defeat in their opening six games and at that early stage already the team for everybody else to catch.

Aldridge says his players are “fighting it” at the moment, not getting the bounces, not operating at full capacity.

Still, Swindon Wildcats aside, where they came out on the wrong end of a 6-3 scoreline on Saturday night, the results are still going the Knights’ way.

Just wait until they do get going.

Aldridge freely admits he can be a hard taskmaster and very demanding of his players. It’s an approach which clearly pays off.

“I think we’ve just got to come together a bit more because we’re fighting it a little bit and we were fighting it (in Swindon) and at times on Sunday, too,” said Aldridge.

“But we talked in the period breaks about getting through this and how we’ll learn from it and when we do learn from it how we’ll come together and move on from it.

“But we’ve just got to find a way to grind it out until we’re back full of confidence, there’s a little bit of confidence missing in our line-up right now and I’ve got to get it back in them.”

Last season, the Knights never lost twice in a row at all in the league, that consistency a big reason why they finished so far ahead of their rivals.

The only time they suffered such a blip was in the two-legged National Cup semi-final against Hull Seahawks.

Their ability to bounce back from setbacks was evident again in front of their own fans on Sunday night, the frustration at coming off second-best in Swindon being quickly forgotten with a comfortable 7-2 win over Bristol Pitbulls.

It has become something of a badge of honour for both coach and players not to let that losing mentality take hold for more than one game.

“It was important to bounce back - that’s a big part of what we believe in,” added Aldridge. “We always talk about not losing two in a row and we needed it, we needed a game, a confidence builder - we’re not going 100 per cent right now, so to get the win was good.”

Aldridge is long enough in the tooth to appreciate not everything will go the way of him and his team.

And while he believes they are short of where he wants them to be, he knows he still has a special group of players on his hands.

“You do get ups and downs, that’s natural,” he added. “I think I’m quite demanding and I know I’m probably tough to play for at times, especially over the course of a full year.

“And we’ve talked about that, too, about how I see things, how I expect things.

“But I’ve never had a problem with the group and their buy-in. They are a phenomenal group, every one of them and I’m really happy with the two guys that we’ve bought in, too - they’ve added a lot.”