Hull Seahawks and Sheffield Steeldogs looking to make up ground on NIHL National leaders

They come up against a Raiders team also hurting, lying second-bottom in the NIHL National standings and seeing their losing streak extended to five games after losing out twice to leaders Milton Keynes Lightning last weekend.

The second of those losses was a 12-3 hammering in front of their own fans on Sunday and so they too will be keen to produce a positive response for head coach Sean Easton and their fans.

It means there will be plenty of pride at stake in East Yorkshire on Saturday (face-off 5.30pm) and again 24 hours later when the teams reconvene in Romford.

Davies – who is looking to add to his roster with one, possibly two British players in the coming weeks, possibly on two-way deals – is confident he will get the right kind of performance from his players on both nights.

“It hurts them lads when we lose, every single time,” said Davies. “They are a very hard-working bunch of players we have here.

“I’m expecting a response this weekend. I know we’ve got games in hand on the teams, but they don’t mean anything if you don’t win them.

"We’re still in a good position, we just need to make sure we keep it that way.”

Sheffield Steeldogs, who bounced back from a second successive loss against bottom club Bristol with a 3-2 victory at home to Solway Sharks, have a one-game weekend, heading to third-placed Peterborough Phantoms on Sunday for the first time this season.

Captain Jonathan Kirk said: “It’s our first time at Peterborough this year and we know what it’s like over there, it’s always a chippy game.

"If bounces go your way you tend to get a lot of chances but you’ve got to earn those bounces, so we’ll go in there after working hard this week to try and cut out those little mistakes.”