Sunday 9th February 2014 Cheshire Phoenix V Worcester Worcester Wolves

Worcester Wolves will play the second of games on consecutive nights this Sunday when they travel up to Chester’s Northgate Arena to take on Cheshire Phoenix (tip off 5.30pm).

Phoenix won’t be hoping for a repeat of previous games when they face Wolves in the third and final meeting of the regular season.

Twice John Lavery has seen his side just seconds away from a victory, only for the Wolves to force overtime, and eventually get the win.

“They’ve got out of jail twice,” lamented the Phoenix play-caller.

“The first time, earlier in the year, we should have taken that. We were up, the ball’s turned over, they score and the game goes into overtime. Last time we played them, Reggie Middleton’s got two shots from the line when we were up by one. If he made both of them then in my eyes it was all over, as long as we took care of the ball.”

Middleton missed one, Wolves’ Zaire Taylor forced overtime and the rest is history.

Lavery’s opposite number, Paul James, is expecting another hard-fought game.

“I don’t know what it is but we haven’t played our best against Cheshire this year,” said the Wolves’ head coach. “Credit to Cheshire really for taking us out of our offensive sync, as I don’t think we’ve played our best against them but have still found ways to win. The beauty of this team is that when we haven’t played at our best, we’ve found ways to win.”

He added, “It’ll be tough on their floor, they’ve played really well there and playing them after Plymouth is a really tough ask. This year we’ve been very tough mentally and physically and we’ve manage to find ways to win, and certainly we need some points out of the weekend.”

Having twice been denied the win, Lavery is delighted that this time it’s on their own floor, in front of what’s expected to be another capacity crowd.

“No-one likes coming to the Northgate, so it’s going to be interesting,” said Lavery.

“Manchester was sold out and if the predictions are right for Sunday, it’s going to be another lockout.”