AARON Nell has his Swindon Wildcats charges geared up for two tricky tests in the English Premier League this weekend.

This evening, Cats, who are sixth in the table, welcome the ever-improving Hull Pirates to the Link Centre (face-off 5.45pm) before Nell and co. make the long trip to the Deeside Leisure Centre in north east Wales to take on the Manchester Phoenix on Sunday (face-off 6.30pm).

The Pirates finally have something to shout about in their debut EPL campaign after moving off the bottom of the table in recent weeks, with the east Yorkshire outfit recording a four-point haul last weekend, although they were brought back down to earth as they suffered an 8-1 thrashing at the hands of Telford Tigers on Wednesday evening.

Player-coach Nell, whose team slipped to a frustrating overtime defeat away to Hull last November, is anticipating that the Wildcats will have to be at their wariest to ensure the Pirates don’t plunder maximum points this evening.

“We’ve got two tough games this weekend,” said Nell.

“Hull are a side that have improved a lot since the start of the season and to be honest, that’s good to see.

“They won twice last weekend (against Bracknell Bees and Manchester) and they’re on a bit of a roll. They did get beat heavily on Wednesday but we’ll have to work really hard to get a result against them.

“Manchester is also going to be a difficult one. They’re really good in their own rink and their top guys are as good as anyone else’s, so it’s another match where we’re going to have to work as hard as we can.”

Nell says that Cats are striving for constant improvement as they look to recreate the form that saw them rack up nine victories from 12 matches before their mid-December break.

A 3-0 win over Sheffield Steeldogs and losing point at Guildford Flames after recovering from a 3-0 deficit last weekend have given the Link Centre boss plenty of encouragement.

Nell added: “I think that anyone would take a point away to Guildford, especially coming from 3-0 down.

“We’re just trying to improve all the time. We had a couple of bad games after Christmas but I think that we’ve solidified since then.”

The Wildcats are set to be without D-man Matt Selby for this evening’s clash with Hull as he serves the final game of his suspension.

The 20-year-old was penalised after being ejected from the game during Swindon’s 3-2 win over Bracknell on December 28 for fighting with the Bees’ Scott Spearing.

He also missed last weekend’s games against Sheffield and Guildford.