SWINDON Wildcats player-coach Aaron Nell was left disappointed that his side didn’t come away with the points their performance deserved as they fell to a 4-2 defeat at home to Guildford Flames.

Two first period goals from Janis Ozolins and Andrew McKinney, against the run of play, put the visitors in front before Carlo Finucci and Tomasz Malasinski fired Swindon back into the game.

Andrew Melachrino tipped home a Jeremy Lundin shot in the third period and by the time Jens Eriksson was firing into an empty net with five seconds to go the game was out of sight for a Wildcats side who fought hard all game.

“I think if we had played like that against Bracknell last Sunday we would have beaten them by 10 or 12 goals,” said Nell.

“It was a very good hockey game tonight. It was always going to be just one goal that won the game and they got that bounce with a bit of a lucky goal and we just got caught on the wrong side of the scoreline.

“It was a fast paced hockey game. It felt a bit like a play-off game and we were both going hard to earn those points.

“We worked extremely hard and they are a very experienced hockey team and, in that first five minutes, if we had scored it would have been a different hockey game because we were on their heels.

“They got two cheap goals in the first that put us down a bit and we showed really good character to come back.

“We had two bad shifts that cost us and they are a team that if you give them a chance they are going to take it.

“Carlo, who had his best game in three months, scored a massive goal and in the end maybe they just deserved to win.

“The result wasn’t positive but it was a positive performance.”

Swindon don’t have a game tomorrow evening as they prepare for a three-game weekend starting next Friday as they are set to face pace setters Basingstoke Bison and Milton Keynes Lightning without star forward Tomasz Malasinski, who is away on international duty.

“You never want to have a weekend with zero points but we have had two weekends all year where we haven’t got two points and that has been when we have only had one game,” added Nell.

“Every weekend we have had two games we have got at least two points so we’re doing really well.

“It’s going to be a tough old weekend (next weekend) and we are going to work as hard as we can for three games and see where we come.

“People are going to be writing us off. We’re playing the top two teams in the league without our best player and it is going to be tough.

“If we play like tonight and play as hard then we will be ok.”