Sheffield Tigers set for 'make or break month'

Tigers currently sit fourth in the Championship standings, but the teams right behind them have meetings in hand.

But the Owlerton outfit still have a huge opportunity to control their own fate with nine fixtures over the next four weeks.

Boss Simon Stead is confident his side have still got what it takes to book their place in the end-of-season play-offs - and says the recipe is simple.

“We need to make sure we don’t let teams in at home and we need to improve on the road,” he said.

“We know how important this next month is going to be and it will make or break our whole season.

“We’re under no illusions of the size of the task and what we’ve got to do - and I believe we can still do it.

“We showed against Eastbourne what we’re capable of on our day and we’re going to need more performances like that.

“The home fixtures we’ve got, we need three wins and while the away fixtures look very, very tough on paper, we have to go into each of those with a positive attitude, chip away and pick up as many points as we can.”

Whether broken collarbone victim Broc Nicol will feature in that crucial run-in though remains to be seen.

“I’ve been chatting to Broc over the past couple of weeks and the initial news from having surgery is not the best news unfortunately,” Stead said.

“He’s not been in great shape but things can change.

“We said we’d leave it with him until this week and get another update.

“Options are limited in terms of covering for Broc so it’s a bit of a tricky situation to be in.

“Of course it’s a blow though because the lad had just started to hit some real form when he got injured and so for Broc himself and us as a team the timing couldn’t have been worse.”

Sheffield head to Redcar, the team directly behind them in the table, on Friday (7.30) before hosting Newcastle at Owlerton on Sunday (5.30).