THE Basingstoke Bison face the toughest weekend of their English Premier League campaign so far as they face the top two sides.

Tomorrow night (7.30pm) they travel to second placed Milton Keynes Lightning and then on Saturday evening (6.30pm), league leaders the Telford Tigers make the trip to Basingstoke.

Milton Keynes had been due to face the Manchester Phoenix on Friday night, but unfortunately the Lancashire side were forced to quit the EPL on Tuesday night.

This was after talks with a possible investor fell through forcing former EPL champions to call time on their campaign.

The Bison had been set just to play once this weekend against Telford, but have now stepped into to fill the fixture gap for MK.

They have moved their scheduled game at MK for Saturday February 18 forward to this Friday.

The Bison will still be without Stuart Mogg and Ivan Antonov who are Kazakhstan for the World Universiade.

Forwards Aaron Connolly and Joe Miller could also be out of the line-up Looking ahead to their two game weekend now Bison head coach Doug Sheppard said: "It is going to be a tough two games as we are up against the top two.

"We will be short staffed, but have been playing well and finding a way to win games."

He added: "It is disappointing to see what has happened to Manchester and the EPL clubs will now have to help each other out until the end of the season. It will probably mean some more fixture changes."