BLACKBURN Hawks begin the final countdown to the promotion play-offs with a double-header this weekend, away to Chelmsford Chieftains on Saturday before entertaining old foes Telford Tigers at the Arena on Sunday evening (face-off 6pm).

With a top six spot practically a mathematical certainty, Hawks have just 13 games of the marathon 52-match regular season to go, but midweek hat-trick hero Simon Mills has warned remaining opponents there will be no slackening off from the second-placed side.

"We definitely want to go into the play-offs on a high, physically and mentally prepared.

"We want the other teams to regard us as the team to fear and that means keeping our standards high."

Mill's treble strike in Tuesday's win at Billingham was his first Hawks hat-trick: "Yes, I scored one for the Metros, but I was very happy with this latest one. "But I was playing with Steve and Oleg in the last period and they make it easy for you. Declan MacNaughton has brought a wealth of experience to our defence as well, he's good player who has given our second line a bit of depth with George (Powell) and Lee (Cowmeadow)."

Although neither of the weekend's opponents are breaking any pots, Mills expects two tough games: "Chelmsford are always a hard side to play against, they do their utmost to stop you moving the puck around and give you a hard time.

"And although Telford have lost a couple of their more influential players, they can still cause you problems as we found out here a couple of months ago.

"We owe them one for ending our run on that occasions.

"I think as you play teams for the third and fourth time in a season the games bet better, tighter. You get to know each other's style and personnel and you have to work harder to win."

Half-priced tickets issued for last Saturday's cancelled game against Solihull can be used for this Sunday's home game against Telford.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.