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Breaking: Tom Watkins Speaks Passionately After Telford Tigers Defeat Without Using Any Derogatory Words
Head coach Tom Watkins was upbeat despite seeing Telford Tigers taste defeat in their final home challenge game of the pre-season.
against Peterborough on Saturday night.
Tigers went into the clash with Peterborough Phantoms having lost both games the previous weekend against Swindon Wildcats, scoring just once in the two games.
And they went down 4-2 to Phantoms, but Watkins was encouraged by certain parts of his side’s performance.
He said: “That was a much improved performance. We focused on a few key areas in practice this week and wanted to be stronger in our face offs, our defensive zone coverage and neutral zone forechecking. Those areas were where we were pretty solid.
I thought the first period saw Peterborough start faster than us, but we found our legs and in the second and third periods we moved the puck well, had plenty of offensive zone time and created chances. We have plenty to build on.”
Tigers were boosted by the addition of Zachary Yokoyama, who missed both the games against Swindon, while Joe Aston was also added to the line up after his return to the club.
The hosts made a disastrous start to the game and found themselves behind in the opening minute as Scott Robson scored for the visitors, batting the puck into the net from close range.
Midway through the first period, the Phantoms doubled their lead.
Luke Ferrara shooting low to Brad Day’s left after being set up by Nathan Salem.
Tigers started the second period in better form and five minutes from the break, finally got on the scoresheet when Louie Newell set up Vladimir Luka to halve the deficit.
And with eight minutes of the game left the home side were level as Yokoyama bagged his first goal for the club.
But there was a sting in the tail for Telford when the visitors took the lead with just over a minute left through Janne Laakkonen.
With time ticking away Day was pulled from goal to give Telford an extra attacker, but Peterborough sealed the game through Cam Hough.
