Autocraft Telford Tigers travelled to Wiltshire to take on the Swindon Wildcats.
Tigers were able to add new signing Josh Crawley to the line up. Crawley recently joined the club on a two way agreement with Blackburn Hawks and Manchester Storm and will play for Telford when not required by Manchester or when Blackburn do not have a fixture. Tigers were without Jake Price through suspension and captain Scott McKenzie was unavailable.
Tigers had not beaten Swindon this season and were on a run of four consecutive away games without a win.
Telford made the perfect start to the game with a goal in the opening minute. Louie Newell sent a shot towards goal and Eric Henderson deflected it with the blade of his stick. The deflection caught out Swindon net minder Renny Marr as the puck hit his glove and went behind him into the net.
In the eighth minute the lead was doubled. Taylor Stanton’s shot was saved by Marr but the rebound landed in the slot where Crawley was able to get to the puck first and slam it into the net.
Late in the first period, disaster struck for Telford as Adam Harding mishandled the puck in front of Brad Day’s goal allowing Reed Sayers to score.
Five minutes into the second period, the hosts were level when Jake Bricknell scored with a wrap around goal.
Within a minute, Swindon had their first lead of the night when Tomaz Malasinski scored with a shot from the left circle into the roof of the net, whilst the Wildcats were on the power play.
The home side dominated much of the second period and added a fourth goal through Josh Shaw and soon after had a fifth goal with Bricknell scoring his second goal of the game during another power play.
Swindon ended the period with a sixth goal whilst shorthanded. With Tigers on a power play, Glenn Billing broke away down the ice and managed to squeeze the puck past Day to leave Telford with a mountain to climb.
The third period started with another Swindon goal as Sayers added his second goal of the contest. Telford responded with a third goal when Newell intercepted a Swindon pass on the blue line and sent a low shot past Marr.
The final goal of the game belonged to the home side and was scored by Swindon captain Sam Bullas who led a two-on-one breakaway and sent Day the wrong way to seal a comfortable victory for Swindon and another defeat on the road for the Shropshire side.
Final Score: Swindon Wildcats 8 Autocraft Telford Tigers 3.
Scorers: Eric Henderson, Josh Crawley and Louie Newell.
Man of the match: Rhodes Mitchell-King.
After the game Head Coach Tom Watkins, commented, “We started the game very well and played disciplined, smart hockey, we won our battles and moved the puck well, putting ourselves in a good position but we made an unfortunate handling error that led to the first Swindon goal which was against the run of the play.
In the second period the level dropped, we took several offensive zone penalties giving the league’s best power play unit significant opportunities which they took, scoring two goals from three chances.
We let the game slip, not enough of our players played hard enough, they didn’t compete hard with more playing like passengers or invisible than the handful of players that play hard every night. Right now we are struggling to put in a performance on the road, we must be more competitive than we have been of late to get anything from an away game.”
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