THE Deeside Dragons will take on the league’s top two sides in a daunting weekend double-header in the NIHL Laidler Conference.

First, the Flintshire club will travel to Yorkshire on Saturday looking for immediate revenge against a Hull Jets side who ruthlessly disposed of the Dragons at the Den last week.

A day after Saturday’s visit to face the second-placed Jets, the Dragons welcome the current league leaders, Bradford Bulldogs, to Deeside to complete a difficult weekend which could make or break their season.

However, to make the chances of a remarkable double victory even bleaker, the Dragons are expected to be missing up to four of their star players for Saturday’s trip to Hull.

Dragons player-coach, Marc Lovell, said: “Radim (Reznicek) will miss out this weekend because he’s flown back home for Christmas, while Alex Parry and Simon Furnival are both unavailable for the Hull game, but both should be back for Sunday’s match with Bradford.

“Sam Bolwell is a doubt too. She picked up a knock to the head against Widnes that she thought she had recovered from, but it flared up again in the Hull game (last Sunday).

“So, we’ll assess her before the game, but we have another netminder in Michael Rogers who’s ready to step in after playing well when called upon so far.

“It’s for situations like this that we had the summer that we did. We knew before the season started that we needed to bolster numbers, and now after bringing in several new players our squad can handle these kinds of situations.

“We know how Hull play and we’ve spoken about it as a team. They come out quickly, so we need to be prepared for that, and we’ve addressed a few things in training so we will try to implement that and do enough to get the points.

“Then, hopefully we have enough left in us to do the same to get past Bradford, but it won’t be easy.”

The Dragons go into Saturday’s clash with Hull on the back of a disastrous looking 9-1 defeat at home to the same opposition a few days ago.

But, if not for a third period collapse – where the home side conceded seven goals in 15 minutes – it would have been a much tighter affair.

Ahead of the upcoming rematch, Lovell added: “Our performance didn’t merit that scoreline because we played well for the most part and it was nowhere near a 9-1 game.

“We’ve had a few good results away from home recently, so hopefully we can continue that little run before putting in a performance in front of our supporters against Bradford.”

Deeside are currently fourth in the NIHL Laidler Conference and could go to within three points of the league leaders with two wins this weekend.

Despite last weekend’s big defeat, the Flintshire club haven’t fared too badly against Hull and Bradford – the league’s runaway top two - so far this season.

Lovell’s men ran out 6-4 winners last time out in Hull on the opening day, before being narrowly beaten 3-2 and 8-5 in back to back games against Bradford.

A third period collapse at home to Hull in October saw the visitors hit four late goals to seal an 8-4 win before history repeated itself last week in their 9-1 success in Flintshire.

Elsewhere, a day after hosting the Dragons Hull go to the defending champions, Widnes Wild, while Telford Tigers welcome bottom of the league Blackburn.