THE Gillingham-based Invicta Dynamos ice hockey squad welcome Billingham Bombers in the first leg of the English National Hockey League Cup semi-final on Sunday.

Player-coach Kev Parrish and his team, already South champions, now face the side who sit in mid table in the North League and who can only finish third at best if a disputed result with Nottingham regarding a second abandoned game goes in their favour.

Parrish said: “We have said since the start of the season we’re aiming for the treble. This is the first game in our quest to land our second trophy and we will be going all out to win.

“With our scoring record I’m looking to be four or five goals ahead to take up there on April 3. Then we can play our more defensive game and look to shut up shop.

”We have everyone available for the game as Jamie Smith could return after being out with a stomach strain and 12 stitches in his neck from an operation to remove a cyst.” The action gets under way at 5.15pm.

Billingham lost last weekend to Blackburn Hawks and have been on a bad run, having not won since January 30.

Their away form is even worse, without a win on the road since Jan 23 and that was against North basement boys Bradford who have lost all 15 of their games.

The Bombers are not a highscoring team, averaging 5.06 goals per game in the league to the Mos’ impressive 9.44, but they are tight in defence although Invicta shade the statistics 1.8 goals conceded to 2.6.

Experienced forward Paul Windridge and top scorer Simon Hehir are their key men, but their league season totals of 3+18 and 15+8 respectively are nowhere near the Mos’ top scorer Mike Allaby’s 36+34.

Young defenceman Michael Farne has also been impressing of late, with Bombers’ coach Terry Ward saying recently: “His ability to read the game and anticipate changes in play impresses me.”

But Parrish rightly has confidence in his team. He said: “We desperately want to do better than we did last year. We blew out in the semi-final stage last year against Oxford and that hurt, but we can use that feeling to our advantage this year.”

In the other semi-final the South League’s runners-up Oxford City Stars face North champions Sheffield Scimitars.

* Kevin Parrish spoke to KM-fm's Simon Watts about the squad's recent cup win and Sunday's clash...