Karl Lennon admitted a fourth year as Invicta Dynamos head coach wasn’t planned - but the team’s potential has got him craving for more.

Lennon watched the Mos make big improvements in the second half of the past season and that’s given him the drive to keep going.

“It’s never a decision you take lightly because it’s a huge commitment,” he said after agreeing to another campaign as the NIHL South Division 1 team’s head coach.

“We sort of regrouped with the family after the season finished. I had always planned to do three [years]. That was what I put down on a piece of paper to [owners] Kevin and Sarah [Parrish] from the start.

“The fourth wasn’t in the short-term plans, but as the season came to a conclusion, they obviously wanted to figure out what was going to happen next year, and that’s when we started to talk about what the plans could be. The good thing is that we both wanted to continue what we’ve been doing.

“There’s been a lot of progress in the club in the last three years, and the work’s not done, ultimately. I don’t think it will ever be done, but we at least feel like we’re moving in the right direction still.

“There are definitely still things that I want to achieve with the group and the team.”

The Dynamos finished their 2024/25 season fifth in the league standings and lost out to champions Slough Jets in the play-off semi-finals.

“Before Christmas my feeling was a little bit different,” Lennon admitted.

“I was not really seeing the same progress as I’d seen in the two previous years. There’s a lot of effort and commitment that goes to it, especially with the family. I did definitely consider whether or not I should, or shouldn’t, do this moving forward.

“I think post-Christmas, of the 14 league games we played, I think we picked up points in 10 and for me I want to be able to have an impact on the team in the form that we have. I felt like in the second half of the season, we did that.

“We brought some players in and some players back from injury as well, which is important and we kicked on a bit. Not only that, we managed to pick up some good results along the way.

“The second half was certainly more stable than the first half. That, for me, was something for us to build on.

“With that, a good period of recruitment this summer and of course, some focus on some of the more development areas that we need as a team, then I think we’ll have a better chance even next year.”

Lennon’s already been busy talking to the players he wants to keep for next season.

“In some ways, you start from scratch,” he said.

“There’s players that you’d expect that will probably remain with the club and I’ll be talking to them about that but nobody has a three-year deal here like you’re getting [in] football. Every summer it’s a blank piece of paper.

“Who do you want to keep? Who do you want to move on? Who do you want to continue to develop? Ninety per cent of that you probably will keep and try and work with. I greatly value the players that we have and I want to continue to work with them.

“Some will probably either move on themselves, they’ll find a new opportunity that they want to pursue, or maybe want to join a team from a higher division, or take less responsibility and play in a lower division.

“I want to build a team of local talent, which we generally have, and build on that with quality from outside.

“There’s obviously people that I would like to approach this summer to try and improve us as a team. That's not just on the ice.

The club aren’t short of emerging talent, either, with up to 15 junior players representing England over last weekend, including netminder Nikolai Divall and Dylan Worthy, who were appearing for the national under-19 side.

“It was amazing,” said Lennon, who attended the international showcase.

“To have that many players representing England over the weekend was insane and my son was one of them in the under-10s, so I was a proud dad.

“The measure of success we have as a club is of course what we do on the ice, and the performances in the league and the cup and whatever else, but it’s also about the development of players.

“Those two lads in particular, Nikolai and Dylan, they’re both 16, playing for under-19s, which is probably a couple of years earlier normally than would be selected and they did fantastic.

“Nikolai played on the Saturday and he gave up five goals, which he himself will be unhappy about because he’s a really driven kid. None of them were his fault.

“Dylan was steady and calm and assured and played beyond his years in defence. I was dead proud of them, but also the rest of the club and how many we managed to get there for the weekend to represent the country.”