Steve Fellows says he wants his Deeside Dragons players to show some fight when they return to action at Telford Tigers on Saturday (5.30pm).

Dragons player-coach Fellows was furious with the performance of his players in the 8-2 defeat to the Tigers on home ice a fortnight ago and has laid down the gauntlet ahead of this weekend’s rematch.

Recent performances have been far below the standard expected by Fellows and he is expecting to see a response when they head to Shropshire this weekend.

“To be honest, I’m still hurting from the loss to Telford last time out as it was borderline terrible display,” said Fellows, whose side were without a game in the Laidler Conference at the weekend.

“This weekend presents us with a chance to redeem ourselves but it will be a tough game as Telford are a strong side and they are going well in the league.

“Our performance levels and mentality during games have got to be better. It’s simply not been good enough in recent weeks and that needs to change.

“I want to see some fight from us and I want us to go out there and battle for the puk and show that we have some passion about us. If you do that and you lose the game you can have no complaints as you know you gave it your best shot.”

The Dragons will have to take to the ice minus captain Marc Lovell this weekend, making an already difficult task even tougher.

“We’ll be without Marc who is our best player and our captain, so we know how hard things will be for us,” said Fellows.

“But I don’t want that to be an excuse as I want to see some passion from the guys out there on the ice.

“I’m hoping to put on an extra training session this week so we can work on a few things and make sure we are totally prepared.”

The Dragons finished second in the Laidler Conference last season but have found things far tougher this term having lost the services of key players including Dan Soderberg-Andersson, Keith Founds, Ben Simister and Jordan Bannon in pre-season.

This season they have found wins far harder to come by on the ice, with the club currently sitting seventh out of 10 in the league having lost 14 of their 24 games so far.

“It has been hard for us this year,” said Fellows.

“We were training twice a week last season and doing well, but this season it’s only once a week and it’s been a struggle.

“When you add to that the loss of some key guys like Jordan Bannon and Ben Simister just before the season started, it is a lot of talent to lose from a squad and expect to be able to compete at the same level.

“We are focused on improving as a club but this year is a bit of a transitional period as we’ve had to rely on our young players quite heavily.

“But we go into every game trying to get the win and if we show some fight this weekend then I’ll be happy.”