“We have eight games to go and we must concentrate on trying to win them all. That is what we now need to do.”
“We have eight games to go and we must concentrate on trying to win them all. That is what we now need to do.”
Phantoms next league title Cup Final faces off at 7pm at Bretton on Saturday when Bracknell Bees come to town. It promises to be an absolutely huge night as Phantoms two title rivals, Swindon Wildcats and Basingstoke Bison clash in Swindon in a fixture that could do real damage to Bison’s title hopes while also putting the Wildcats right in the mix as contenders.
First things first, Phantoms will need to take care of the banana skin that the Bracknell game throws down. After a torrid run of fifteen defeats in seventeen games in December and January, the Bees have bounced back to win three of their last four fixtures but they should be missing their influential top scorer Frankie Bakrlik who is sitting out a short ban for accumulating too many penalty points on the season.
After last week’s frustrating loss in Basingstoke, coach Koulikov now accepts that Phantoms must win every remaining fixture. “We have eight games to go and we must concentrate on trying to win them all. That is what we now need to do. We have to focus on ensuring we put in the performances to earn the results we need. We can only control what happens in our games – not what goes on elsewhere.”
In the league’s other big game, Bison have failed to beat the Wildcats in regulation time in any of their four games this season but they may well have timed their big game to perfection as Wildcats unexpectedly lost their midweek league fixture away to London in overtime and will also be facing Bison without import Jan Kostal who is injured. Coach Nell was putting a brave face on the defeat, “all we can do now is take it a game at a time ….. even if we had won, we were still relying on favours from other teams. We just need to bounce back now on Saturday and get two big points.”
Saturday’s home game faces off at 7pm and we need every voice we can to turn out and get behind the team. We are down to just eight more games in the run-in and it will all come down to who wants it the most and that includes which set of fans want it the most so be there, be loud and be the sixth man !