MATTY DAVIES acknowledges this year’s pre-season will likely be harder than ever before for his Hull Seahawks players - but that is exactly his intention.

For the second year running - having played Manchester Storm 12 months ago - the Seahawks will take on Elite League opposition ahead of their NIHL National campaign which this year gets underway at Leeds Knights on September 18.

Tonight sees Hull head to Fife Flyers - now coached by former Milton Keynes Lightning boss Tim Wallace - a trip that comes on the back of a pre-season gathering which has started a week earlier in any previous year.

Davies, whose team host Holland’s Tilburg Trappers next weekend, believes his team have suffered from slow starts in each of the past two seasons and is determined to avoid a repeat this time around.

Hull Seahawks' head coach Matty Davies. Picture: Bruce Rollinson.

placeholder image — Hull Seahawks' head coach Matty Davies. Picture: Bruce Rollinson.

“The first thing I've done with pre-season is added a week,” said Davies.

“We did an extra week last year, but it was more training, it wasn’t actually three weekends of games and four weeks of training, which is what we've done this year.

“I've upped it and it’s about making sure that we're ready to go. We haven't had a good start for the past two years and we've missed out on the National Cup (semi-finals) twice in a row which I feel has been a massive blow to us.

“I’m not saying we’re definitely going to make the Cup semis by doing what we’ve done for pre-season this year, but it should give us a better chance.

“We're going to be in better condition, the lads have been together longer and I'd like to think that both Fife and Tilburg are going to be better teams than us.

“That's what's going to be the interesting thing - we're playing against better opposition and they are going to be hard games.

“We're playing against better opposition and they are going to be hard games. But that's what we want and what we need.”

Other than Lee Bonner who is unavailable, Davies takes his entire squad to Kirkcaldy, including two-way forward Alex Rushby and 15-year-old Will Durgan, who has been granted special exemption to play. He turns 16 in early September.