Lee Valley Lions coach Alley wants to end winless run
PUBLISHED: 14:00 10 November 2017
Coach George Alley on the bench (Pic: Phil Hutchinson)
Archant
Lee Valley Lions coach George Alley wants his side to break their winless start to the season this weekend.
Alley’s men will travel away to face the Slough Jets on Saturday (6pm) before returning home to the Lee Valley Ice Arena to host London rivals Haringey Huskies the following night (5.30pm).
The Lea Bridge Road-based club have started the season with seven straight defeats and the coach believes this weekend will determine where they actually are.
“We have to get something from these games, to be blunt,” Alley said.
“Whilst playing the former division one teams has been a tough learning curve, against teams considered labelled as bottom half of the table, we’ve underachieved.
“I think this weekend will be an acid test of our resilience and whether we’ve learnt lessons for the first seven games.”
The coach believes Slough will be a tough challenge as they’ve been improving week on week this season.
“They’ve had some good results now that they’ve found their feet, they’ll be a tough nut to crack.
“They have at least one very experienced player in each position and that’d starting to pay dividends for them.”
The former Lions and London Raiders goalie admits the next few games are vital and they must make sure they get something out of them.
“We’ve got a run of games including this weekend, against teams who are predicted to be in or around our end of the table.
“We need to get off the ground now.”
Alley revealed it was frustrating to lose 8-7 to their rivals the Huskies earlier this season at Alexandra Palace.
“The loss against them last time out was frustrating at best, infuriating at worst because we never got into a purple patch, yet took them to the wire.
“We have the game to beat most teams in our league but must be calm and play to our strengths, not theirs.”
The former Lee Valley junior coach praised the Haringey will power.
“They clearly have a strong will amongst them as they’ve battled to a few one goal wins that otherwise would have gone against them.
“At the start of the season they were top line heavy but they’ve started to spread the points throughout their squad.”
