ADAM Harding says he and his Swindon Wildcats teammates are feeling the pressure ahead of their NIHL South One curtain raiser.

Player-coach Aaron Nell has safely navigated his side through to the semi-final of the Autumn Cup, winning all but two of their cup contests.

However, now their attention turns to the league crown, starting with Invicta Dynamos at the Link Centre this evening before making the trip a day later for the reverse fixture.

Harding rejoined the Cats over the summer and with six goals under his belt already, he says the Swindon side are fully briefed on the importance of a quick start to their league campaign.

“There is a lot of pressure on us, with last season’s team doing so well, there will be pressure,” he said.

“Already in practice we have spoken about how big it is to make a quick start to the year.

“Aaron has made it clear how important it is to start well because they were chasing it last year after they lost a couple of games early, so these games are really important to us.

“When I joined, it was one of the things he spoke about. He wants to create a winning culture and the league is the big one.

“The league is the all round, you have to win a lot more games to win the league unlike the cup or the play-offs, where you just have to hit a hot run at the right time.”

From a personal stand point, Harding says he has been surprised with the level of hockey so far, and admits he is happy to have hit the ground running on the goalscoring front.

“I’m really enjoying it and the guys are great, so it is nice to get back - it has been an easy transition,” he said.

“The quality of hockey is similar to the EPL, it is good hockey, I have been pretty impressed with the standard so far.

“It hasn’t dipped as much as I thought it would have. You’ve just lost a couple of import slots so it’s a good league.

“I have to give credit to my line mates for the start I have had. Floyd (Taylor) and Luc (Johnson) play simple hockey, they are very direct and they’re easy to play with.

“For confidence, it is always good to get off to a good start, you always want to get that moneky off of your back.

“But I’m not taking anything for granted, you still have to work hard in practice and keep it up.”