SWINDON Wildcats may only be heading in to their fifth match of the season on Saturday but head coach Aaron Nell believes his side will need to dig to the depths of their character when Telford Tigers come to town.

Nell’s troops have made a stuttering start to their 2016-17 campaign, suffering three defeats from four outings, which includes losses on the road at Peterborough Phantoms and Hull Pirates.

Conversely, Telford, who were regular season champions two seasons ago, have started this term like a house on fire, winning every game so far.

Nell blamed individual errors for his Cats’ 4-2 loss at Hull and believes that his team cannot afford to make any mistakes when they welcome the Tigers to the Link Centre to avoid being made to pay a heavy price.

“It’s very early in the year but we’ve got to play a proper, proper game on Saturday,” said Nell.

“Telford are very, very good and if there’s mistakes, they’ll smell blood and they’ll punish us.

“I don’t care how well we’ve done against Telford in the last two years – they’re twice the team they were last season and we’ve got to be ready to put a big, big effort in.

“We’ve got to think about Saturday and whatever we’ve done during the week, it’s for Saturday.

“I don’t care about anything else. We’ve got to be ready.

“They’re a very, very good team. They’ve been scarily good so far and we’ve got to be ready to put a good performance in.

“We’ve got to be ready to fight and I know it’s early but it’s a massive, massive game for us.

“We’ve got Telford and Guildford this weekend – it doesn’t come tougher and we’ve got to be ready to pull ourselves out of this little hole we’re in.”

Guildford Flames, who have already beaten Swindon 4-3 at their own rink this season, provide Cats’ away assignment this weekend.

However, Nell’s focus remains on Saturday’s Tigers test and trying to arrest his team’s early-season struggles.

The Swindon chief believes his side have given themselves a mountain to climb already, eliminating any room for error.

Nell added: “We’re putting ourselves under pressure early in the year. It happens every year.

“We’ve had two away games and you know what; win one of the two and we’re okay but we’re putting ourselves under pressure now and we’ve got to be ready on Saturday night or it will be ugly.”