Leeds Knights: Tests come thick and fast as perfect start makes Knights NIHL National's No 1 target

Sitting atop the league standings after six games should be a familiar sight to Knights fans, who saw their team get off to a similar start last season, their first in the league as a new organisation having replaced the ill-fated Leeds Chiefs.

Shortly after rising to the top on the back of six straight wins, injuries began to bite deep into an already paper-thin roster under Dave Whistle and, while the wheels didn’t exactly come off, they lost what proved to be valuable ground on their rivals, ground they never recovered in terms of the regular season title race.

That may, of course, happen again second time around but, given the significant changes to personnel under head coach Ryan Aldridge, it looks less likely - better stocked and better equipped as the Knights seem should they run into similar ‘health’ problems.

Teams will try to outgun the Knights, teams will try to match their attacking style, other teams will try to bash them around.

One such test came on Saturday at home to Bees IHC, when Doug Sheppard’s team arrived at Elland Road Ice Arena determined to knock their hosts out of their stride - literally in some cases.

But Aldridge was confident his roster possessed the necessary qualities that meant they wouldn’t roll over and was pleased to be proved right - Sam Zajac for one taking Josh Martin to task when they dropped the gloves.

The Knights emerged deserved 5-2 victors, backing that up with a 5-4 road win the following evening in Slough, although the Leeds boss admits his team almost threw that one away.

“I thought Saturday was a scruffy game,” said Aldridge. “I think they came here and tried to bully us but we matched that. We’re a pretty tough team, I feel, it’s just that we don’t really play that way.

“But I know we’ve got those kind of players in the locker room, so I wasn’t surprised to see it and I felt that we matched it well.”

Another pleasing aspect of the win at home for Aldridge was that, after making tweaks to his top two forward lines – leading goalscorer Grant Cooper and Kieran Brown effectively swapped places - he got the production he was looking for from both units across both nights.

“We played pretty good to be fair,” he added. “We changed the lines, so it was the first time the lines were different and I saw plenty of good things from both.”

Aldridge is understandably loath to criticise his players on the back of such an impressive run of form but, if he had to bre picky, it would be with how his team finished the contest in Slough.

“They came to play down there, so it was a completely different game,” he added. “We dominated the first and then we kind of went off the boil for the other 40 – the game should have been over and done with in the first.

“Fair play to Bees, they brought it back to a one-goal game and, to be honest, if the game had gone on for five minutes longer, we might have been in trouble.”