Sam Zajac confident Leeds Chiefs can build on opening win of season

The accomplished 4-0 victory over Romford-based Raiders IHC saw the Chiefs end their wait to savour the sweet taste of victory at the sixth time of asking.

This weekend brings back-to-back road trips to Swindon Wildcats and Hull Pirates, with the Chiefs player-coach confident his players will quickly switch their focus back to the task of picking up more points in order to lift themselves off the bottom of the NIHL National standings.

“Hopefully that win can kick-start our season,” said Zajac. “A lot of the guys feel that a big weight is lifted now.

“We’re all here to win games obviously and it is a big lift to get that first one under our belts. But we’ve got huge games coming up against two teams many people probably consider to be among the better teams.

“But if we play like we did on Sunday there is no reason why we can’t come out of those two games with something.”

Zajac was pleased with the contribution made by every single player in Sunday’s win, including new forward Liam Charnock, who only signed for the Chiefs 24 hours before face-off.

“If you go down the list every guy had a great game” he added. “Charns fitted in really well as I knew he would and really made a difference to the second line too, but there were so many positives to take from Sunday."

Injury robbed the Chiefs of Andrew Hirst for the trip to Essex and with defenceman Bobby Streetly taking a knock ion the night, the visitors were reduced to just four at the back for a large chunk of the game.

"We were up against it a bit in terms of bodies," said Zajac. "We played four D a lot of the time at the back there with Bobby taking a bit of a knock, so the guys were clocking up a lot of minutes and we were already missing Hirsty because he tweaked his back in midweek - but we're hoping he should be fine for this weekend."