Phantoms and Wildcats share the spoils for the second successive day in Bretton
PHANTOMS 3 SWINDON WILDCATS 3 (Pre-season friendly)
PHANTOMS 3 SWINDON WILDCATS 3 (Pre-season friendly)SAME teams, same intensity, same scoreline.
That just about sums up the second installment of Phantoms' double-header with the Wildcats at the Peterborough Arena last night.
With the English Premier League season just around the corner, both teams were clearly in no mood to hand the edge to rivals who in the space of a few months could well be fighting tooth and nail for the top few places in the league.
Make no mistake, the Wildcats are a far more dangerous animal than the tame tabby they seemed last season with Ivan Racek, Jon Sitko and former Hull Stingrays netminder Ladislav Kudrna brought in to add some serious substance to the roster.
Two goals from Sitko and a man-of-the-match performance from Kudrna between the pipes more than proved that clear fact and Phantoms at times found it tough to make inroads against their dynamic guests.
But after a poor start for the home side during which Stephen Wall misread Sitko's speculative strike to concede a soft early goal, the Bretton-based boys found their range in the second period and started playing good, high intensity hockey.
And after building up a decent head of steam, a quickfire, three-goal burst started by Andy Munroe and completed by Craig Peacock and Nathan Rempel saw the home side storm into a 3-1 lead.
Pete Russell's well motivated side were up for this one however and responded well before getting their rewards when Sitko grabbed his second before Racek fired in from range early in the final act.
Phantoms coach Colin Patterson said: "I thought we did okay in the second third and played some good, high intensity hockey but we started pretty slowly.
"That was a bit of a problem last season and is something we will be working on. The second period was very good for us but we need to keep it going for the full 60 minutes if we are to be successful.
"Swindon are a good team and they played hard so these two games were a real test for us from which we have learned a lot."
PHANTOMS
Time / Scorer / Assist
30.59 A. Munroe L. Buckman.
32.06 C. Peacock J. Hutchinson.
32.19 N. Rempel M. Ziedins.
Man of the match - James Hutchinson.
Shots - 44.
WILDCATS
2.37 J. Sitko J . Hayes.
34.02 J. Sitko R. Watt.
45.12 I. Racek N. Watt.
Man of the match - Ladislav Kudrna.
Shots - 38.
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Weather for Peterborough
Saturday 11 February 2012
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Temperature: -5 C to -1 C
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Wind direction: South
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