SWINDON Wildcats player-coach Aaron Nell is unconcerned by the unexpected changes to the NIHL South section for the coming season, believing they best suit both the club and the league.

Earlier this month, an NIHL meeting had agreed a new format for the 2017-18 campaign, with NIHL South One being split into two conferences of six teams.

Swindon were due to join Conference B, alongside Chelmsford Chieftains, Invicta Dynamos, London Raiders, Peterborough Phantoms and Streatham IHC, with Basingstoke Bison, Bracknell Bees, Cardiff Fire, Milton Keynes Thunder, Oxford City Stars and Solent Devils competing in Conference A.

However, yesterday, the NIHL South’s league management committee revealed that, following the withdrawal of Chelmsford, Oxford, and Solent, Division One South will instead run as one section with the remaining nine clubs.

The teams will play each other twice at home and twice away, with the top eight sides qualifying for the post-season play-offs.

Chelmsford, Oxford and Solent are understood to have requested a move to NIHL 2, citing the increased costs of putting together a roster for what they say is effectively a new Premier League in South One.

Although a further revision of the league structure is far from perfect, Nell believes it will improve the quality of the competition.

“The changes are not ideal but we do prefer the one league system where we play everyone the same amount of times,” said Nell.

“We’d have preferred it to have 12 teams but hopefully now we can have an end to it all and push forward.

“We are all going into the unknown as we don’t quite know how things are going to work but I do think that with this new system, the league will be a lot fairer.”

“With the two conferences, I did think one was a lot stronger than the other, so this way, everyone plays each other the same amount of times and whoever is top of that league will deserve it and rightfully be the champions.”

Under the new format, the Cats will play just 32 league matches compared to the 48 they contested last season, although an NIHL S1 Cup competition will also be operating, with details yet to be confirmed.

Nell says the club are wary of this shortfall and are looking to find additional fixtures. This also has a knock-on effect for supporters, with revised season ticket details for the coming season still to be announced.

“We had to compromise with the teams below that don’t want to play as many games and we had to accept that,” added Nell.

“There is a cup competition too and we are looking at finding more games to play. Hopefully they will be good, competitive games.

“We are looking at what’s happening with season tickets all the time. We understand there are lots of unknowns and as soon as things are concrete and we know exactly what is happening, our fans will be the first to know.”

“We don’t hide anything from our season ticket holders and we want to keep them in the loop as best as we can.”