FORWARD Floyd Taylor scored a hat-trick to help Swindon Wildcats come from behind to overpower Streatham 7-3 at home in NIHL South One on Saturday night.

The Wildcats started slowly and found themselves behind in the first period – a goal they failed to cancel out until midway through the second when Sam Bullas netted.

Taylor scored his first shortly before the second buzzer, although Streatham still had time to square proceedings in the remaining seconds.

But, in the third period, the Cats came out firing and two further goals from Taylor were added to by a brace from Chris Jones to put the home side 6-2 up.

The visitors got one back eight minutes before the end, but Loris Taylor scored with 54 seconds to play to wrap up the points and put pressure on league leaders Peterborough Phantoms.

While hat-trick hero Taylor was pleased with his own performance, he said that stringing together wins at this point in the season was the most important thing.

He said: “It was a good win. Especially as Peterborough are slipping up a bit at the moment, so the more wins we can get, the better chance we have of catching them and winning the league.

“We had good possession of the puck in the first two periods, but we just weren’t putting the puck in the net.

"In the third period, it all started to click and we started scoring.

“I thought everyone played well in the first two periods – it wasn’t like we weren’t working hard, it was just the bounces weren’t going our way, but they started to go our way in the end.”

The Cats had to make do without player-coach Aaron Nell for Saturday’s game – as he completed his time out in Estonia with the Great Britain U20s – and in the first two periods, they appeared to struggle without their leader.

Without Nell, the Cats looked toothless in front of goal at times, but Taylor’s hat-trick ensured they avoided a potential upset in the third-session scoring blitz.

Referencing stand-in coach Ryan Aldridge and his own lack of goal-scoring form, Taylor said: “It was a bit different without Aaron, but Ryan knows everyone and he knows what he’s doing in the changing room, so it’s not too different.

“It was about time I started scoring. I started the season off well and then I had a dip, but hopefully that’s it now and I can start scoring again and working hard.

“As long as you’re working hard, it doesn’t matter about the goals – as long as I work hard and do my job then that’s it.”