Leeds Knights bid for NIHL National Final Four Weekend over after defeat to Telford Tigers

Friday night’s visit from Telford to Elland Road will at least offer Knights’ fans an opportunity to hail the players who have given them so much enjoyment and entertainment this season before their debut campaign comes to a close 48 hours later in Slough, the temporary home of Bees IHC.

Going into the post-season, Leeds were seen as one of the favourites to get to Coventry for the NIHL National Final Four Weekend, their brand of breathless, attacking hockey seen as ideal for the play-offs.

But they are the first to be eliminated, last night’s 5-4 defeat at Telford making it impossible for them to clinch a top-two place in their group.

At least they went down fighting, literally in Cole Shudra’s case, proving as they have done all season that they were a match for any of their eight second-tier rivals.

It’s been a long season, one the Knights have played short for a lot of the time - as other teams have too. Head coach Ryan Aldridge - who has had a positive impact since succeeding Dave Whistle in mid-January - had remarked on a number of occasions in recent weeks how tired the players were, both physically and mentally.

Perhaps the play-offs were just a step too far for a team whose fourth-place, regular-season finish in their inaugural season, coupled with runners-up in the Autumn Cup, will always be viewed as an impressive achievement.

With nothing at stake next weekend, it would be easy for the Knights just to turn up and go through the motions. But Aldridge said there needed to be a desire to go out on a positive note, regardless of the disappointment at not making it to the SkyDome Arena.

For this team, this franchise, there will be plenty more opportunities to be part of such weekends.

“The boys were obviously despondent afterwards, they were understandably disappointed, but I think we owe it to ourselves and to our fans to try and make sure that we finish on a high this weekend, particularly at home, where it would be great to sign off with a win,” said Aldridge.

“Yes, they are ‘nothing games’ but nobody wants to end the season on the run we’re having at the moment. Yes, we’ve been in games here and there, but none of us want to end the season this way.

“We’ve got to pick ourselves up from this and go into the summer feeling better about ourselves by finishing off with a couple of wins.

“The team has had some ups and downs with illness, injuries and sickness - this has been a tough part of the year - but we had everybody back this weekend. We were the better team last night against Bracknell [Bees], but we lost, and I thought we matched Telford well tonight - but, again, we lost.”

Three times the Knights had the lead at Telford, three times the hosts fought back to level, only taking the lead for the first time at 46.50 through Corey Goodison which, typically, proved to be the winning goal.

Cole Shudra had broken the deadlock at 11.38, his effort being followed just under three minutes by Jamie Chilcott’s blast from the blue line.

Just 19 seconds later, though, and Telford were on the board, the first from Finley Howells on what would prove a memorable night, the 19-year-old levelling just over two minutes into the second period, only for Kieran Brown to tip in a little over a minute later to restore the visitors’ advantage.

Again, they were pegged back, Howells completing his hat-trick at 26.10, with the teams trading goals one more time before the second intermission, Matty Davies making it 4-3 at 37.00 before his former Hull Stingrays team-mate Jason Silverthorn equalised shorthanded at 39.05.

“We pushed them very close,” added Aldridge. “Every time we went in front we seemed to make a mental mistake that cost us.

“We played really hard for the most part and there was no lack of effort. It was a bit of inexperience, a little bit of softness as to why we couldn’t quite get the job done.”