Leeds Knights: Sam Zajac calls on Knights to cause rivals nightmares

Dave Whistle’s exit on Wednesday after seeing his coaching duties taken away from him, leaving only a limited role as GM, caught many people – both inside and outside the club – completely off guard.

Owner Steve Nell moved quickly to bring in long-time associate Ryan Aldridge to take over behind the bench, while taking over more of the GM duties himself.

Former Swindon Wildcats and Bracknell Bees coach Aldridge – appointed by Nell on an ‘interim’ basis – took his first practice session with the players on Thursday before getting a second chance to work with them last night.

He inherits a team regarded as one of the most exciting and talented in NIHL National and, sitting fifth in the regular season standings, well-placed for an outside title push, but almost certainly – barring a calamitous loss of form – guaranteed a play-off place.

MORE – Knights coach Dave Whistle in shock exit after just five months

Last weekend, Whistle’s last games in charge, saw the Knights come up short against Swindon Wildcats and Milton Keynes Lightning – two teams above them in the standings they had hoped to claw some ground back on.

With Telford Tigers returning to the top of the standings after enjoying a four-point weekend, it means the Knights are 13 points adrift of the new leaders with 23 games remaining.

To come away with nothing from last weekend was intensely frustrating for the Knights, but Zajac still backs them against any of their eight rivals in the second tier.

“The guys we’ve got in the room – especially talent-wise - I’d put us up against anyone in this league,” said the 32-year-old defenceman, ruled out over the Christmas and New Year spell after testing positive for Covid on Boxing Day.

“Maybe a more objective view from other people wouldn’t do that, but I’ve got full faith in the boys we’ve got in there. I believe we’ve got more than enough about us and we need to get to the bottom of why we’re letting these points slip away – it’s becoming a habit, very much an unwanted habit. We need to nail down why and we need to do that quickly.

“I don’t know whether maybe it’s a fragile mentality or maybe a lack of experience, we just haven’t been able to see games out and it is frustrating.

“It might be a bit of naivety, maybe a little bit of a lack of nous. But, either way, we are not ruling out any aspirations yet. There are lots of points to fight for yet and we have proven before with this group of guys – like at the start of the season – that we can get on a good run.

“We need to get back to the things that really make us tick. We’re quick, we’re offensive and when everyone is on the same page and we’re going full tilt we’re a nightmare to play against.”

Not surprisingly, the charismatic Whistle was a popular figure in and around the team and Zajac admitted it was tough to see the 55-year-old Canadian move on, but believes the Knights are in good hands under Aldridge, whose first game behind the bench is Sunday’s home clash against Basingstoke Bison.

“It was a big surprise when Dave left,” added Zajac. “He’s a great guy but management wanted to go in a different direction and we fully respect that.

“You don’t want to see anyone lose their job and everyone in the room had a lot of respect for Dave.

“But Ryan has come in and that first training session went really well.

“Any time someone new comes in the tempo is going to be raised a little bit, it’s natural that guys are wanting to impress, show what they can do.

“He’s brought a lot of new ideas, he’s got a lot changes to the way that he wants us to play and he thinks we can be successful.

“He’s outlined how he wants us to play, his philosophies – he basically said we can get on board with it or not and I think everyone in the room wants to be a part of this and wants to get on board.”