Leeds Knights coach Ryan Aldridge on pre-season, new signings, Hull Seahawks and Solway Sharks

Yorkshire Post

Leeds Knights' head coach Ryan Aldridge discusses pre-season games against Hull Seahawks and Solway Sharks, plus his thoughts on the new signings for the 2023-24 NIHL National season, including James Archer

Transcript

00:00 Ryan, you've got the first two games out of the way, I know you've been desperate to get

00:08 the lads on the ice in some sort of competitive action. It was competitive against Hull which

00:13 we expected, even for a challenge game. Just looking back on the two games, a win apiece,

00:17 how do you view how it went down for your guys?

00:20 Good, I don't think we could have two games to prepare us better for the league than those

00:25 two. Hull have obviously improved massively from last year, they're going to be a solid

00:32 hockey team. They came out hard and it was a good test for us. But yeah, so far so good.

00:38 You've had a good look at your guys now for a couple of weeks, you've got Solway coming

00:43 up this weekend. Did you like what you saw? Obviously you know plenty about the guys that

00:47 were here last year and won the double. Did you like what you saw out of your new guys?

00:50 Yeah, I don't think we're going to see the best of them yet by any stretch of the imagination.

00:55 Last week, we've talked about this a couple of times with people, we had a terrible week

00:59 of preparation, training in different buildings, really late at night, getting home at two

01:03 o'clock in the morning, doesn't help anybody. We've seen guys in numbers as well, so this

01:10 morning was a good session and hopefully we'll add to that on Thursday and get a little bit

01:15 more under our belts. But we were, myself included, we were unorganised the weekend,

01:19 so we stood out by that and hopefully we'll be more organised this weekend and keep going.

01:24 Solway, new team to the league, you know plenty about them, you'll know the players that they've

01:29 brought, for the large part you'll know Martin Grubb obviously. What are you expecting from

01:33 them? They're again, like Col, I think most of the teams in the league have got better

01:39 this year. And they had a good couple of games with Sheffield at the weekend, two close games.

01:43 Yeah, absolutely. They're quite a deep line-up, deeper than I think probably everyone thought

01:48 they were going to be. They've got a lot of talent, a lot of high-end players, a good

01:51 coach, so they'll be well-structured and they'll be a solid hockey team, so I don't think anyone's

01:56 going to hate them lightly this year, I think they want to come in and prove a point. I'm

02:01 sure they will. You had the open day, obviously the weekend before you played Hull and there

02:07 you introduced James Archer. Just a quick word about James and what he brings to the

02:10 team for you. Obviously he was well-known to Hull as well. Yeah, no, experience, you

02:15 know, obviously losing Col when we did was tough. James and I were talking for a while

02:23 there, we knew he needed a bit of experience, so he's going to come in and help us with

02:28 that. I think his leadership in the locker room will be big, he holds people accountable,

02:32 which I obviously like. So, yeah, to have him in the line-up at this point was I think

02:37 probably a lucky balance for us and it's nice to have him on board.

02:41 [no audio]

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