This weekend is another home and away series, with Telford Tigers being the opponents for the TSI World Bees and this weekend they start on home ice with Saturday being the Bees home game.

The Tigers currently sit in third in the league table but with two games in hand on the leaders. They’re once again coached by Tom Watkins who’s had his fair share of success with the Shropshire club of recent and looks to have once again built a contending roster.

Last weekend frustration continued for the Bees with disappointing outcomes from both the Leeds and Swindon games. Sunday was one of the better games on home ice this season but sadly didn’t yield vital league points.

Despite the result last Sunday there are many positives to take from the game. For vast periods of the game the Bees were the dominant side and proved to themselves that positive results aren’t far away.

It’s been a frustrating start to the season with injuries meaning the Bees are yet to ice their complete roster all together at the same time. Despite that, there have been some memorable victories but of recent a worrying spell has started that needs to be broken.

Josh Smith missed out again last weekend following an injury sustained the previous weekend but Niklas Ornmarker returned to scoring form on Sunday night as he continues to find his way back from injury. As always Josh will be monitored ahead of the weekend. Also absent last weekend was Bayley Harewood who picked up an injury in training leading into the weekend and we’re hopeful he’ll be able to return either this weekend or next weekend.

Head Coach Doug Sheppard shared his thoughts; “We have to be positive more than anything! Our compete level has been a lot higher over the last two weeks but when you find yourself in a rut it doesn’t just change instantly. We need to learn from the last fortnight where we’ve had chances to win all four games and specifically, we need to really focus on putting together a full 60 minutes of play. We seem to be switching off for 5 or 10 minute segments during the game and that’s hurt us.”

Bees play at home in Slough against Telford in a 6pm face-off on Saturday before the return fixture in Telford 24 hours later.