AARON Nell wants his Swindon Wildcats side to lay their Hull Pirates demons to rest this weekend and secure a final home win before the English Premier League play-offs.

The Cats welcome Hull, who cannot qualify for the play-offs, to the Link Centre on Saturday before signing off their regular season away at Telford Tigers the following day.

Swindon suffered an embarrassing capitulation the last time they faced Pirates in late February, surrendering a 5-2 lead late in the final period to eventually lose the match in a penalty shoot-out.

Nell says that defeat is still fresh in the Cats’ minds and is eager to atone for that performance by heading into next week’s play-offs with a home win under their belts.

“We want to make up for that loss. It was a bad night for us and we don’t want that to happen again, so we need to put in a good performance,” said Nell.

“Hull are a good side, they play tough hockey and they work hard. It’s their last weekend of the season so they will want to put in good performances and sign off with some good results.

“Saturday is a massive game for us. We need to put in a performance in front of our home fans before the play-offs.”

The shoe will be on the other foot on Sunday as it will be Telford who want to set the record straight against the Cats.

Nell’s side have won four of the five meetings between the two teams this season, with their only loss coming in overtime back in October.

“We’ve had success against them already this season, I think we’ve taken nine of 10 points against them,” added Nell.

“In the last two months they have been one of the best teams in the league and they will want to show that they can beat us and go into the play-offs with a win in front of their own fans.”

Any win this weekend will do for the Cats as, following defeats at home to Peterborough Phantoms and away at Basingstoke Bison last weekend, they do not want to go into the play-offs on the back of four straight losses.

The Basingstoke result ensured Bison were crowned league champions but Nell took plenty of heart from the 5-4 reverse.

“Last Saturday was disappointing but Sunday was very good,” said Nell.

“It could easily have been a game that we didn’t turn up for and I think a lot of people were expecting a blow-out. They had everything to play for, whereas we didn’t really have very much to play for.

“There was a lot of good play from us and if a couple of things had gone our way, then we could easily had surprised them.”