Leeds Knights aware of NIHL National play-off threat posed by Telford Tigers

On paper, the opening round of the group stages of the NIHL National play-offs look to present league and cup champions Leeds with a welcoming start, given they are coming up against the lowest seeds, Telford having scraped into the post-season on the final weekend.

But, for all eight teams, the play-offs present a fresh start.

And for Telford that will be an opportunity to put behind them what, for them, has been an overwhelmingly disappointing regular season campaign.

Winners of the regular season league title in the first two years of NIHL National, the Tigers have struggled to maintain those early high standards.

Last season saw Tom Watkins’s team finish sixth before coming alive in the post-season, winning their group and only missing out a place in the final against Leeds by a controversial overtime winner for Peterborough Phantoms.

The Phantoms are group opponents for both Leeds and Telford this time around but, for now, Aldridge is looking no further ahead than Saturday’s opening tie of a double-header weekend in Shropshire.

“I don’t think anyone can take Telford lightly, I know we won’t be,” insisted Aldridge. “There’s a lot of experience in that team, in that locker room - on all lines.

“And Tom’s an experienced coach, a very good coach. If you do take them lightly, then you’ll regret it.

“They’ve changed their line-up a lot since the start of the season. They had a rough start to the season with their imports, but they made some import changes and it’s changed their whole team and Brad Day is a really good goalie when he gets going.”

All eyes, of course, are on the Knights and their bid for an unprecedented treble, having already lifted the league and National Cup trophies.

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For Aldridge, the achievement of three successive league titles is a bigger achievement.

“You can’t really avoid talk of the treble,” he added “Everybody’s throwing it around but, for me, there is still a lot of hockey to be played before then in order to even get to the Final Four Weekend.

“Yeah, I suppose it is in the back of our minds, but it is a very tough ask.

“Yes, it would be amazing to get it done (league, Cup and play-offs) in one year, but the three league titles we have won means more to me.

“That’s because we’ve had to be dominant for three years in a row, not just one year. It points to the continued quality of our team.”