Leeds Knights 2's young guns urged to find self-belief to boost NIHL North One play-off hopes
DAVEY LAWRENCE says his Leeds Knigths 2 team have to start believing they can compete in NIHL North One.
As they prepare to welcome title third-placed Deeside Dragons to The Castle on Saturday night, it’s becoming increasingly clear the Knights are in a straight dogfight with Nottingham Lions to secure the eighth and final play-off spot.
The visit from Deeside is the start of a tough pre-Christmas run for Lawrence’s team, with trips to leaders Blackburn Hawks and second-placed Solihull Barons scheduled for next weekend.
“We’re in a bit of a tough spot here but we’ve got to go into these games with that belief in ourselves,” said Lawrence, whose team produced their best performance of the season when beating Deeside 4-3 on home ice in October.
“We beat Deeside here already this year, we pushed Solihull close at home and the same Blackburn at the beginning of season
“It’s all a matter of what bodies we've got when we've got them, how we apply ourselves, and just building on that with some belief and some structure.”
Lawrence insisted making the play-offs was the minimum target for the season.
"We don’t want to do any worse than what we did last year so we need to make the playoffs to equal that,” added Lawrence. “All we can do is chip away at these games, picking up wins when we can.”