WORCESTER Wolves are expecting a close encounter against Hackney in today's testing National Basketball League Division Two clash in London.

It will be their second league outing of the season and comes on the back of last weekend's impressive 87-84 National Cup first round win over a strong Sheffield Arrows outfit.

Wolves player-coach Rick Solvason said: "It will be a difficult game for us. Hackney were relegated from Division One last year so they will still have a strong side.

"They will be eager to get back up there and they have experienced players as well as young athletic ones.

"I think they are going to be very strong opposition for us, but we are very optimistic.

"We had a good training session this week and the guys are up for it. It should be a good game and a very close one."

Confident Wolves launched their league season last month with a fine 127-76 victory over Tamar Valley in Plymouth. Hackney have also only played one league match and, like Wolves, came out on top.

Unbeaten Worcester are boosted by having no injury concerns and will be hoping to reproduce the kind of form they showed against Sheffield when Josh Cooprider was the match-winner.

With the scores deadlocked at 84-84 with 20 seconds remaining, the cool-headed young American kept possession and then shot a long range three-pointer for victory.