Watkins’ fury at toothless tigers following loss at Swindon

Autocraft Telford Tigers travelled to Wiltshire for the second road game of the weekend facing Swindon Wildcats on the back of a much needed victory over the Sheffield Steeldogs on Friday night.

Telford won a tight contest with an overtime goal from Rhodes Mitchell-King. But the victory was tempered with the loss of import forward Devon Skoleski after a poorly timed hit by Sheffield’s Henry Adams injured the Tigers’ player and saw him leave the game.

The injury news got worse as defender Noah Kaariainen was ruled out for 8-12 weeks. That, coupled with Corey Goodison’s short term agreement ending, meant that the roster received a much needed boost of the return of defender Danny Rose from a long term injury. With Skoleski unavailable, Coach Jason Silverthorn was able to ice to increase the squad numbers.

The game was only 5 minutes old when the home side took the lead with a goal from Dylan Lipsey. Then a minute later, Swindon doubled the lead with a shot from distance from Jake Bricknell that went in off the post. Swindon then had a glorious chance to increase the lead when Chris Jones was awarded a penalty shot but Brad Day stood tall and saved the Swindon forward’s effort.

Early in the second period Telford got back in the game with a goal from James Smith but within a minute, the home side had doubled their lead with a cool finish from Josh Shaw. Swindon captain Sam Bullas then hit a fourth goal with a terrific shot into the top corner of the goal.

Telford fell apart and conceded two goals in quick succession with Bricknell completing his hat trick with both goals. The home side weren’t finished there and added a seventh goal through Tomas Malasinski to send a shell shocked Tigers team back to the dressing room 7-1 down.

At the beginning of the third period, both teams changed net minder with Renny Marr being replaced by Tyler Perre and Day by Matty Bloor.

Swindon continued their absolute dominance with an eighth goal early in the third period from Ryan Wells. 

Tigers gained a little respectability on the scoreboard with two goals in a minute midway through the period. First, Louie Newell scored and then captain Scott McKenzie pulled another goal back. An unlikely comeback was over before it began as Jay Warren scored a ninth for Swindon and despite Harry Ferguson scoring a fourth goal for the visitors, Swindon had the last say on the scoreboard with a late goal from Glenn Billing rounding off a very disappointing night for the Shropshire team.

Final Score: Swindon Wildcats 10 Autocraft Telford Tigers 4.

Scorers: James Smith, Louie Newell, Scott McKenzie and Harry Ferguson.

Man of the match: Adam Harding.

After the game Head Coach Tom Watkins commented, “We didn’t show up tonight we got outworked and outclassed. The biggest disappointment was our lack of compete level, our inability or willingness to engage in battles physically. We looked soft, we weren’t prepared to play in the trenches, which was so different to Friday night’s performance against Sheffield.”