BASINGSTOKE Bison face two of the in-form teams in the English Premier League this weekend.

Swindon Wildcats visit on Saturday night and then have a trip to league leaders Telford Tigers.

The Herd will be keen to complete an early season double, when the Wildcats make their first visit to Basingstoke, in a game which has a 6.30pm face-off.

Swindon have won their last five games, which included shutting out Telford last Saturday.

The Wildcats now have five imports on their roster, after the recent return of last year’s top points scorer, Jonas Hoog.

This gives them four import forwards along with Tomasz Malasinski, Jan Kostal and Henri Sandvik, while the foreign legion is completed by defenceman Kenton Smith.

However, they can only ice four in any game, so it remains to be seen which combination head coach Ryan Aldridge will use against the Herd.

The Bison have an excellent home record this season with their latest victory being over Milton Keynes, in which man-of-the-match Tomas Karpov had a hand in two goals.

Looking ahead to the Swindon game Bison player/coach Doug Sheppard said: “We know they have a highly stacked offence, so we have to make sure we play a very solid defensive game.”

On Sunday night, the Herd will travel for the first time to Telford, looking to repeat their shoot-out victory of earlier in the campaign.

The table-topping Tigers have suffered just one defeat in their last 12 games, and Sunday’s game, which starts at 5.30pm, will give second-placed Herd the chance to close the gap at the top.

Sheppard said: “We know playing Telford in their own rink is going to be tough. “They will be keen to beat us after losing in our barn.”