RYAN Aldridge insisted his Wildcats side needs to start putting away the teams at the bottom of the EPL as they prepare to take on Peterborough and Bracknell this weekend.

While games against the league’s bottom side and the team sitting eighth in the table appear to produce an easy weekend on paper, the Link Centre head coach knows it won’t prove so routine when they get out on the ice.

Aldridge is happy with the way his players raise their game against the sides battling away at the top of the table but needs to see more from them against the league’s strugglers, starting tomorrow night against the Phantoms.

“For us these are two very tough games against two teams who always battle hard and Peterborough have shown, with the changes they’ve made, that they can beat anyone in the league,” he said.

“Bracknell always give us a hard game too and make it tough whenever we play, so even though it’s an easy weekend on paper perhaps we have to keep pushing.

“We seem to struggle against the easier teams but are able to raise ourselves for the matches against the sides at the top of the league and that needs to change.

“We have a young team and sometimes that happens but on Sunday against Guildford (5-2 victory) we showed we can raise it against the best teams. At the start of the season we always seemed to play at the level of our opposition and that can be dangerous.

“We have to come out and play well because they are two good teams who can turn you over on any given night.”

Aldridge is expecting to once again be without Sam Smith due his ongoing concussion issues while Ryan Watt is banned for Saturday’s game with Peterborough having picked up his 10th penalty point of the season at Milton Keynes last Saturday.