On course

Whitley Warriors were 5-1 victor’s at home to Telford last night and remain on course for an English National League title showdown with Nottingham Lions - who were 2-1 home winners against Blackburn last night - at Hillheads early next month.

However, before then the Warriors have a number of important games to negotiate and coach Simon Leach is looking for his side to put together a series of displays similar to the one that saw off the Titans.

“We put Telford under a lot of pressure tonight and had them pinned in their own end for much of the time, creating a lot of good chances and maybe we should have scored a few more than we did,” he said.

“We did drop the tempo a little in the middle period and that allowed them to get back into the game with a powerplay goal,” he added, “but once we got back in the groove, I thought it turned out to be a comfortable victory.”

After picking up just a point on the road last weekend, Leach knew the win was crucial for his sides chances of chasing down Nottingham.

“Like we said then, the performance last weekend was good,” the coach continued, “we just didn’t get what we maybe deserved from the two games, but tonight we got the job done and probably had another gear we could have used if it had been necessary.

“But we got good performances all over the ice, we were solid in our play throughout the team and everyone played their part in the win; and that’s what we have to do every week now if we are to be successful at the end of the season.”

The Warriors were in Northern League action on Saturday night when they travelled to Dundee and lost 7-3, but Leach was pleased with the performance of what was a relatively young side.

“We gave Under 18’s players Ben Davison and Josh Maddock a debut and both performed really well for their first Warriors appearance, while we were without most of the players that would normally feature on our first two lines,” said the coach, who also played.

“We also picked up a couple injuries with David Barrett breaking his arm and Nathan Ryder suffering ligament damage, so once again the value of having a big squad has enabled us to compensate for missing players.

“I thought we did quite well for a couple of periods against Dundee and were in the game at 3-2 going into the latter stages of the middle session,” he added, “but the penalty shot award turned the momentum back their way and their experience told in the final 20 minutes; but it was a very creditable effort from the lads.”

Goals from Bryan Dunn and Shaun Kippin put Whitley 2-0 ahead by the first interval against Telford last night, before Luke Brittle scored the visitors lone reply on the powerplay at 29.06.

Nathan Taylor had restored the Warriors two goal lead by the end of the middle session when he too netted with the extra man and final period markers from Adam Reynolds and Karl Culley (short-handed) sealed the win.

Reynolds had also been on target in Dundee - scoring Whitley’s third goal - after Andrew Tindale had netted the first two.