BRACKNELL Bees captain Matt Foord is urging his team to show more mental toughness as they prepare for one final push to reach the EPIHL play-offs.

They have five fixtures remaining and need to take a minimum of eight points, providing eighth-placed Sheffield Steeldogs fail to win any of their remaining fixtures.

“We still believe we can make the play-offs,” said Foord. “But we need to dig deep and go on a little bit of a run.

“We have been making mental errors which we need to eliminate. If we can do that and focus on taking our game to the next level of intensity and mental toughness.

“I feel we also need to show more discipline in playing to the system Smitz (player-coach Lukas Smital) wants the team to play, and playing it for 60 minutes.”

Bees paid the price for a lack of consistency and firepower last weekend when they lost twice to newly-crowned champions Telford Tigers, 7-3 away and 4-2 at home.

Speaking to the News after Sunday's game, Foord said: “It's frustrating as we believed this was a game where we could have picked up two points, we truly believed that.

“But, for whatever reason, we made a couple of mental errors and could not put the puck into the back of the net.”

Bees outshot their visitors by nearly two to one, but were continually wasteful in front of the Telford goal.

“Last night (Saturday) for the most part, we played really well, executing our game plan, but tonight it just felt a little bit flat,” admitted Foord, who was voted Bees' man of the match on Sunday.

“We had been playing well, so it was frustrating and we now need to show the character we have shown before.”

Bees will be looking to bounce back when they visit Swindon on Saturday before hosting second-placed MK Lightning 24 hours later.

“Next weekend is going to be tough, but hopefully we can pick up four points and make a push for the play-offs.

“Fingers crossed we can put it all together and step up to that next level.”

Defender Josh Tetlow will return following his four-match suspension, but the influential Scott Spearing remains sidelined with his knee problem.