Ryan Aldridge happy to see Leeds Knights heading in right direction
AFTER what he termed a “slow start” by his team, head coach Ryan Aldridge feels Leeds Knights are heading in the right direction in NIHL National.
Of course, an eight-game winning streak helps back that belief up, although Aldridge remains a coach who, by his own admission, is hard to please.
After last week’s 7-1 win at home to Bristol Pitbulls sealed an eight straight victory and lifted his team up to third in the regular season league standings, Aldridge said: “We know we had a slow start and I'm sure people were writing us off.
“I think we're right back where we should be right now or, you know, getting up there and we just need to keep building on it.
“Like I said, I wasn't happy with the first 20 minutes (against Bristol) and I wasn't happy with our game down there, but the boys found a way to win.
“Winning's a habit, losing's a habit. At the start of the year we had that losing habit and right now we've got that winning habit.
“And we’ve got two massive games this weekend and we know we need to keep the winning habit going.”
Aldridge believes his team’s start to the 2026-27 season – their worst in their five years of operating – was a combination of the enhanced quality of teams across the league, but also the result of his own team’s uncharacteristic shortcomings.
“We've got to be ready every night," added Aldridge, whose team face crunch clashes against Romford Raiders and Hull Seahawks this weekend in terms of their chances of progressing to the semi-finals of the National Cup.
“Teams are way more organised than they used to be - on the face-off system, their structure, everything - so we've got to be switched on every night and when you're not switched on, you lose hockey games.”