Weekend to forget for Chieftains

It was a weekend to forget for the Chelmsford Chieftains as they were defeated twice by the Wightlink Raiders, here's the IceMan Pete Lewis's take on the weekend:

A broken piece of plexi delayed the start of the game on the Isle of Wight this evening and as the evening progressed things began to go wrong for the Chieftains.

The shortbenched side went 1-0 just over 10minutes into the game when Danny Hughes netted for the home team to get the crowd going. The Chieftains battled hard and did their best to keep the scoreline within reach as the game headed into the first break. In fact the Chieftains had the majority of the shots and outshot the Raiders 12-9 in the first period.

Just under half way into the second period and it was 2-0 when Alex Murray fired past Ben Clements with Hughes getting the assist. Ross Brears gave the away fans something to cheer about on 32:55 with a nicely taken powerplay goal with Alex Green and Aaron Connolly picking up the assists. Sadly that was the end of the scoring for the Chieftains this evening.

Player-coach Jeremy Cornish then netted on a powerplay to make it 3-1 and then early in the third period Murray netted his second of the game with former Chieftain Hughes notching his second assist. Another former Chieftain killed off any hopes of a valiant comeback as Luke Reynolds made it 5-1.

James Ayling was the star of the show for the Chieftains as he picked up the man of the match award while young Matt Colclough in the Raiders goal took home the award for the home team.

The next day the teams met again, this time at Chelmsford. After the defeat on Saturday, much was expected for the Chieftains to bounce aback. The hosts got off to a dream start as Danny Hammond notched an early goal just 99 seconds into the game. The game was end to end and the extra large crowd of almost 500 almost saw Hammond make it 2-0 but his shot went just wide. Late in the period and the Chieftains did double their lead thanks to man of the match BT Williams being in the right place at the right time in front of the net and poked the puck home thanks to Blaho Novak and Aaron Connolly's build up work.

26 seconds of the second period was all it took for the Chieftains to go 3 up when Ross Brears capped a fine performance with an excellent solo effort that he tucked past Matt Colclough in the Raiders net at the second attempt. Darren Brown almost made it 4-0 a few minutes later but was denied by Colclough. A few moments later and it was Ben Clements's turn to be a hero as a good save denied Stewart Tait a goal. Clements was finally beaten though on 32:46 when a near post goal from player-coach Jeremy Cornish found it's way past Clements in what looked to be an impossible angle. Youngster Ruairidh Garrett threaded through a great pass for Hammond but Hammond slipped when he was 1on1 with Colclough and the score remained 3-1.

The Raiders pulled another one back at 46:58 when Dan Scott rifled in a shot from the top of the circle, although there was some debate about whether the puck did cross the line or not. Hammond again went close moments later when a good pass from Alex Staples, who later picked up player of the month award, found it's way to the hard-working forward but the crossbar came to the rescue and the score remained nicely poised at 3-2 with just under 10 minutes to play.

The Chieftains hearts were broken on 54:05 when Scott combined with Danny Hughes to give the former Chieftain a game tieing goal. The Chieftains players were rocked and then the game turned right against them when Hughes turned provider for Tait to score the winner with just under 4 minutes left. It was quite ironic that Tait would be the game winner for the Raiders as he had spent the best part of both games getting under the skin of both players and fans of the Essex side, so it was no surprise to see him and his teammates celebrate in the manner they did.

A disappointed and frustrated head coach Dean Birrell said after the game "Sometimes you look at games and think 'did they win that or did we lose it?' Tonight we definitely lost it. We competed with them early on and were the best team for the first half of the game, but then we got lackadaisical and sloppy at times and gave the Raiders chances to get back into the game and they did. We stopped hitting, we stopped forcing issues, we were dominating early on and then just slipped away. We've been in this position before and we've got to learn from it. We are a young side and they are still learning, but if we want to play with the big boys we've got to start playing like big boys".

Birrell continued "It's a weekend to forget. There are positives to take from it though and we will, but it's frustrating that it's overshadowed by a big negative that we've not scored any points this weekend and all the teams around us have picked up points.

"Looking ahead to next week when Oxford come to visit us, they've obviously lost their coach recently (Simon Anderson left the City Stars to take up a coaching role at Premier League side Swindon Wildcats) but they've brought some guys in who can play and will play and we have to be aware of that. Oxford are never a simple side to beat and we haven't had any easy games against them. We've got to pick our game up again, as we head towards the play-offs, and I hope we can start with a win over the Stars as we play game 2 of our 6 home games in a row series".