RYAN Aldridge says his Wildcats players must cut out the excuses if they are to progress as a team and move up the English Premier League table.

The head coach has called on his squad members to take full responsibility for their jobs on the ice and ‘hold their hands up’ off the back of errors.

Speaking after Sunday’s narrow 2-1 loss at Peterborough, Aldridge said: “Too many people at the moment I think are looking for other people to do it, or maybe looking for an excuse as to why they messed up.

“Everybody’s going to make mistakes, that’s why we’re are in the EPL and not the NHL, but that doesn’t matter, they need to learn to get over that.

“Make a mistake, that’s fine, but don’t look for an excuse, just hold you hands up and be a man about it and we’ll all get on in a better way.

“Everybody’s got to take some leadership, of course. We need to make people aware that they don’t have to worry about what the other players are doing. Chances are if you are doing that you are not doing your own job.

“I learnt a bit about a few individuals (against Peterborough) and we’ll have to see about handling them in a different manner to get the best out of them.”

The defeat against the Phantoms meant Swindon are now without a competitive win in 2012/13 in four attempts, off the back of losses to Slough, Sheffield and Manchester.

However, Wildcats were the more impressive side in two of the three periods against Peterborough, which gave Aldridge hope ahead of upcoming fixtures.

“In the first and third we battled well, we know we have to battle with teams,” he said.

“There’s a lot of teams in our league who are going to battle hard and we have to match that and we know that.

“We’ve got a talented team, but that’s no good if you’re not working hard and matching the work ethic of other teams.”