AARON Nell hailed skipper Jan Kostal as the driving force behind the Swindon Wildcats, even if the true class of the Cats captain sometimes flies under the radar.

Forward Nell paid tribute to the key role the 34-year-old played in Saturday’s impressive 5-1 win at Sheffield Steeldogs, with Kostal working tirelessly to shackle the hosts’ star imports Lubomir Korhon and Jeff Legue, freeing up his team-mates to bring home maximum points.

According to Nell, the Czech ace, who is also Swindon’s joint-assistant coach, may not always steal the headlines with goalscoring exploits but there is no doubting who the key man on the Wildcats roster is.

“He works so hard every night. He’s a model professional and he’s like the dad of the dressing room,” said Nell.

“Everyone looks up to him and he might not get the points or the goals but him and Stevie Lyle were by far our best two players and Jani played their two players by himself basically.

“He was unbelievable and he shut down maybe two of the best scoring imports in the league.

“And people don’t see that. Around the league, people see it, but people that watch a game don’t see what he does. It’s unreal.

“He leads by example. He’ll say something when he needs to and Jani doesn’t need to score to play well “And it’s his work ethic that we all need to copy and build on.”

Despite a comfortable 5-1 victory courtesy of three fourth-period goals, Nell was singing from the same hymnsheet as head coach Ryan Aldridge, who criticised his team’s ‘flat’ performance.

The Swindon man also says that he treated his trip to Sheffield like any other game, despite his spell in the city last season with Elite League outfit Sheffield Steelers.

“It was a good third period. In the first period, we were okay and in the second period we were really bad – we weren’t good enough,” said Nell.

“We needed a win after last weekend was a bit dead and flat, so it’s an important win because it’s easy to lose (in Sheffield).

“It’s just another game. I’ve always liked going to play there.

“It didn’t quite work out for me in Sheffield last year but it’s most important to get the win, take the two points and build on it.

“We need to start playing better at home.

“We’ve had one decent home win all year and it’s up to our top players, our imports and myself, to be better at home and to play like we did against Telford (a 4-0 win at the Link Centre earlier this month) every home game.

“We play (the Steeldogs) again on Saturday and they’re going to come out flying because they’re going to want to get us back, so we have to make sure we’re at the top of the game and win again on Saturday.”