Telford Tigers in costly cup loss against Hull Seahawks

Autocraft Telford Tigers returned to home ice on Saturday after two consecutive road games last weekend.

This game represented Telford’s last game, which would count for cup points. Tigers were currently in the last qualifying position for the semi-finals, and a win was required to give them any hope of retaining that place. Tigers suffered an injury blow prior to the game with the loss of import defender Caelan McPhee for an extended period. Nick Oliver was able to return from a long term injury to boost the roster.

Tigers had recently been suffering from slow starts to the game and often their first period performance had cost them the game. A penalty called on Tom Byrne for tripping in the tenth minute would see Hull open the scoring. On the subsequent power play, Jordan Stallard set up Bobby Chamberlain to score.

Five minutes later, the visitors doubled the lead. The Tigers’ defence were caught out when Johnny Corneil broke away to score.

Telford had been off the pace during the first period and this continued in the second period as Hull effectively killed the game off with a three goal burst.  Stallard scored after more defensive hesitation led to a turnover on the Tigers’ blue line and then a low shot from Tommy Spraggon who was stood alongside the boards by the Hull bench beat Brad Day for Hull’s fourth.  When Lee Bonner scored from close range for Hull’s fifth goal, Day skated off to be replaced in goal by Ben Norton.

The game was over as a contest but Tigers broke Jordan McLaughlin’s shutout bid with a power play goal from Patrick Brown late in the game.

A poor performance from the home side saw them fall out of contention for the cup semi final places and drop to fifth in the league standings.

Final Score: Autocraft Telford Tigers 1 Hull Seahawks 5.

Scorers: Patrick Brown.

Man of the match: Ben Norton.

After the game Head Coach Tom Watkins, commented, “That was not our best performance at all and it ends our hopes of qualifying for the final four of the cup. We need our best players to be our best players and I don’t think we got anywhere close to that. It seems our players need a wake up call every night.

“The dressing room has to hold each other accountable, expect more from one another to raise the standards across the board. I thought when Ben (Norton) came into the nets he battled for pucks and looked comfortable. I thought Nick (Oliver) made a sold return and showed a lot of composure on the puck and Bryn (Capps) was skating hard, playing a good two way game.

“Outside of that I would question either the compete level or the quality of execution of the performance of most of the group to get anything going.”