Despite a brave effort Troy Perkins' side lost at league-leaders Warrington Wizards on the weekend, leaving them needing a win at Liverpool Buccaneers in their final fixture this Saturday, while they rely on Huddersfield beating Gateshead to guarantee them a play-off place.

"Despite missing a few key players we should win the game," Coach Perkins said. "Our captain and scrum half Blake Kirby is doubtful for this week, as is Barry John Swindells."

Swindells was missing from the Stags team which lost to Warrington Wizards on Saturday, while Blake Kirby started but was taken off injured after an impressive performance from the skipper in the opening half hour.

He put Stags' first points on the board, collecting a loose Wizards pass to race a full forty metres to touch down in the right corner and cancel out Shaun Daley's opener.

Hemel then took a deserved lead just before the half hour when quick hands on the last tackle saw impressive stand off Cameron Mann stretch over at the right of the posts. Kirby added the extras.

But they were pegged back only a minute later by centre Ian Stephenson who went over in the corner and things got worse for the visitors when Kirby was taken off on 35 minutes after injuring his ankle.

Hemel started the second half strongly and within three minutes of the restart were further ahead, after some slick hands saw Kane Phillips dot down with substitute Sean Johnston adding the conversion.

But Wizards hit back immediately, regaining the ball from the kick off to score a converted try to reduce the deficit to two points.

And the home side then took the lead when Carl Lloyd was put through to score in the left corner for the first of a quickfire double - almost immediately afterwards a superb offload by prop forward Scott Davidson found scrum half Billy Sheen who scored under the posts to give Warrington an eight point cushion at 24-16.

The game was made safe by another two well-taken home tries with Stags unlucky to finish up 40-16 losers.

"I'm very proud of the effort, considering we had about 10 players unavailable," Perkins said. "We played two 16 year olds and two 17 year olds and for those boys to stand up against the league leaders they really did themselves proud.

"I felt we were the better team for the first 60 minutes. Unfortunately in the last 20 we conceded a couple of soft tries and gave them the confidence to get on a good roll.

"It really was the one that slipped away."