Invicta Dynamos face a difficult weekend on the road as they look to keep their faint NIHL1 South title hopes alive.
The Kent outfit head into this weekend’s fixtures at London Raiders and Oxford City Stars nine points behind Chelmsford Chieftains with eight games to play.
The Dynamos put two disappointing defeats behind them with a 3-2 home victory against the Raiders last Sunday and stand-in captain Arran Strawson is keen to build on that performance.
“We had key guys missing through suspensions and injury, but we just battled through it and got the job done,” Strawson told Kent Sports News.
“Before the game I asked everybody to be a leader and everybody stepped up. If I can help lead like that then I’m doing my job.
“The league got away from us the previous weekend, so to bounce back at home in front our fantastic fans was really sweet.
“We want to win every game from now on because we want to push Chelmsford all the way. It’s going to be tough, but we want to finish as high as possible for the play-offs.
“We’re not here to just roll over and die – the previous weekend was bad, but we bounced back and hopefully we can continue that.”
In D2S, Lee Valley Lions visit Invicta Mustangs on Saturday buoyed by recording just their second victory of the season last weekend.
The Lions’ 6-4 home success over Chelmsford Warriors ended a five-game losing streak and gave Head Coach George Alley hope that his team would now kick on.
“I’m happy for the players more than anything – we’ve been very close on a few occasions so it’s good to see us close out a tight game,” he told the East London Advertiser.
“We know we’ve been capable of winning regularly, but it’s convincing ourselves that we’re good enough that takes time.
“Mentally we hadn’t adjusted to being a good team, and that would manifest in us throwing leads away or over-celebrating goals.
“Our results state that we are very rarely out of contention, but we can’t rely on one win to be the making of our season.
“We need to back the performances up every week, regardless of opponent or who’s in the squad come game day.
“The only team who have any air of invincibility about them right now is Peterborough. For the rest of the teams it’s about who makes the least mistakes.”
WEEKEND FIXTURES
NIHL1 South
Saturday
London Raiders v Invicta Dynamos
Streatham IHC v MK Thunder
Sunday
MK Thunder v London Raiders
Oxford City Stars v Invicta Dynamos
Solent Devils v Streatham IHC
NIHL2 South
Saturday
Bristol Pitbulls v Swindon Wildcats NIHL
Invicta Mustangs v Lee Valley Lions
Peterborough Islanders v Haringey Racers
Sunday
Haringey Racers v Slough Jets
(Image permission: David Trevallion)
