Hull Seahawks: Matty Davies senses better times ahead for Seahawks as he recalls biggest coaching influences

Matty Davies fully expected there to be plenty of challenges and hurdles to overcome in his first season at the helm of Hull Seahawks.

But nobody expected this, nobody could have predicted the run of bad luck that has beset the NIHL National newcomers since their inaugural season officially got underway almost two months ago.

Together with business partners Ian Mowforth and Joe Lamplugh, Davies jumped at the chance of resurrecting a second-tier hockey franchise in his hometown earlier this year.

To say it hasn’t gone according to plan would be putting it mildly.

After 17 games, the Seahawks are rooted to the foot of the regular season standings, with just one win to their name and their chances of making the coveted post-season play-offs already hanging by the slimmest of threads.

But there is no blame game going on in East Yorkshire. Nobody is being hung out to dry.

It’s often said that you make your own luck in sport, even life in general. Luck is the one thing the Seahawks have had plenty of. The problem is, it has all been of the bad variety.

Just exactly where do you start?

Well, not having the two import players you have signed in the summer – Andreas Themar and Emil Svec – for the first two months of the season, in a league where such signings are crucial to any team’s success, has been the most obvious issue, their delayed arrival down to home office delays over visas.

Even then, when one of those imports – Svec – did finally arrive in the country last Friday, he lasted just a few minutes into the second period of the Seahawks’ game at Telford Tigers before he was ejected from the game for a check to the head. Yesterday saw him handed a 10-game ban, a punishment the club are appealing.

Injury issues – one that obviously affects all teams – have also not helped. Davies came on board as a player coach but, so far, has been unable to set foot on the ice due to an ongoing issue with his knee.

Captain Sam Towner missed several weeks due to concussion protocols, while defencemen Bobby Streetly and Ross Connolly have also been sidelined for lengthy spells.

On another weekend, both of Hull’s netminders – Jordan McLaughlin and Curtis Warburton – were both sidelined after being injured on consecutive nights. Thankfully both were short-term.

It has left Davies relying on two-way signings – some just for the odd night – and several youngsters, most notably Declan Jones, Alex Kent and 16-year-old Owen Bruton, who have all come through the Kingston Sharks junior programme to make up the numbers.

Elsewhere, other players have left, for various reasons, including Shaun Galloway and, most recently, former Sheffield Steeldogs’ forward Cam Brownley.

Not surprisingly, Davies – who following keyhole surgery last month still hopes to play some part this season – admits it has been tough going, probably the toughest time he has endured in his long hockey career, one that began as a fresh-faced youngster at Kingston at the turn of the century.

‘The only way is up’ is a mantra that Davies must keep telling himself week-in, week-out and – along with his two co-owners – retaining the belief remains that better times are around the corner.

“I knew, we all knew, it was going to be difficult, but probably not to this degree,” said Davies, who played at every level for Great Britain. “I didn’t think it would be this difficult – just in terms of the utter bad luck we’ve had more than anything else.

“It’s never been a thing where we’ve had a good spell – we’ve just had constant crap happen to us – the injuries, the visa issues with the imports, it’s just been endless.

“We just haven’t caught any breaks. In the games themselves, we’ve been unlucky. We’ve been the better team in some games, we just haven’t been able to score for whatever reason.

“I know, as much as anybody, that you also make your own luck in this game. We’ve been decent and we’ve been in most games, we just haven’t been able to squeak them results out when we needed to.

“We need our top players because we just don’t have enough. You take Kieran Brown and the two imports out of the Leeds Knights line-up, for example, and you’re dealing with a different team altogether aren’t you?”

On the plus side, Davies has enjoyed the transition from playing to – as it stands at the moment – just coaching.

His vast experience and his passion, not just for the game but hockey in his hometown, is undoubtedly what has helped keep him and those around him going.

Over the years he has played for various coaches and he admits he has taken little bits from each of them as he starts out on his own journey behind the bench.

Sylvain Cloutier, the former player-coach of Hull Stingrays, is one boss that stands out for 32-year-old Davies, as is Telford Tigers’ chief Tom Watkins, who the veteran centre played under when winning the English Premier League regular season title in 2016-17.

More recently, he became reacquainted with Ryan Aldridge at Leeds Knights. The two first came together when Aldridge was brought in as player-coach at Swindon Wildcats in 2008-09, Davies playing for him that season before returning home to join Cloutier at the Stingrays.

Davies has maintained good relationships with all three and admits Aldridge has been a big help in recent months, with words of encouragement and advice, despite their teams being close rivals.

Whenever Davies does finally hang up his skates and opts for a full-time role on the bench – this season may indeed prove to be his last as a player – he will utilise the knowledge and guidance he has received from others over the years.

“You can’t try and be anyone else, you’ve got to be yourself,” he explained. “But I’ve probably taken little bits from all the coaches that I’ve played for over the years.

“Like the things I’ve found to be important in a team, particularly with how you treat the players and make sure that they are onside. For me, that is the biggest thing – when you’re losing it’s really tough and if we didn’t have the room that we have at the moment, it would be a lot more difficult to cope with how things are going.

"The lads get along with each other really well and they are all in it for the long haul, they get what we are trying to do here.

“Clouts was one of the biggest influences on me generally, in terms of how hard he worked and how hard he wanted us to work. Even Aldy, last year, seeing how he worked has been a big influence on me to be honest – just how he went about things, how he thinks about the game analytically, stuff like that, that has been a big thing for me.

“Tommy Watkins at Telford is another one, a great coach – probably one of the best coaches around.

“Aldy has been very supportive, too. We speak to each other a lot and he messages me and I really appreciate that as we’re meant to be rivals and all that but I think he just wants to see me do well, wants to see us do well as a team and that’s nice that he does that because he doesn’t have to.”

And while there will have been many moments in recent months where Davies, his co-owners, his players and the Seahawks’ fans have been down, there are no regrets.

There have been positives. Seeing some of the local youngsters come through to gain more ice time than they can ever have expected is one. The reaction from hockey fans in Hull – some of the most passionate and knowledgeable around – has been warm and wholehearted with a solid number of diehards turning up week in, week out.

But poor results – in any sport – make it more difficult to attract the casual fan through the doors. In these cash-strapped times, that is no different in Hull.

“I’m not going to lie and say this first year hasn’t been tough, it has,” added Davies. “It’s just about getting through this first year. I don’t think we’ll see as many issues as we’ve seen this year ever again.

“The merchandise has gone really well, the fans have really taken to that. We have a good, solid, loyal crop of fans but it’s the casual fans that we haven’t been able to quite get to come through on a regular enough basis.

“And I know every team struggles with that but I do think it’s partly down to us not winning games, to be honest, because fans don’t want to turn up and watch a team that they know is going to lose. Fans want to come and they want to watch a good team, a successful team – I get that.

"We’ll be a different team, a different club next year.”