Banners On The Road – Swindon Wildcats vs Raiders IHC 13/4/24

NIHL National Division Playoffs,Group B

Swindon Wildcats 2-3 Raiders IHC

Wildcats: Bullas. Pakodzi

Raiders: Laishram x2, Milton pp

Ah…: 9:30pm – The Swindon fan staring at me in The Harvey has a facial expression like I’d just slapped the barmaid. I say it again. “They weren’t that bad, really”.

Ultimately, they weren’t. I’m not going to sit here and do a big going over of the individual incidents of the game, check the highlights for that but ultimately I stand by that assertion. Swindon played well. Good teams play well and lose.

Swindon have been one of the most complete attacking teams across this season. They’re an odd team at times, and had moments of inconsistency, but whilst people have spoken a lot this season about Leeds and MK up front, this Wildcats team is stacked going forward. Nell, Malasinski, Billing, Jones, Lubwele, Tower; that’s a solid top 6 in whatever combination you want. You then have secondary scoring from people like Bullas, who scored a fortunate but well earned goal in this one, Sayers, Bebris on the back end, this team can put up points.

Coming into this game having taken 4 points off of Milton Keynes, the first team to win at the Thunderdome since September, I was intrigued to see what sort of Swindon team would show up for this game. For me, they needed to come roaring out of the gate and they did. It was wave after wave of attack and at 1-0 so early on I wondered if the Raiders were about to be on the end of an almighty kicking.

What cost the Wildcats in this was a couple of things. One has been said a lot but bares repeating. Swindon were not clinical. Part of the reason why is related to later but there were large periods of this were Swindon were in control of what was happening and just didn’t seem to put the puck on net well. Billing missed an array of good chances, not saved, just not hitting the net. Nell was uncharacteristically quiet, Malasinski hit the post.

The irony was the one player that Swindon supporters have told me has looked the least confident in front of goal, was probably one of the most dangerous looking players going forward in this game. Balint Pakodzi looked like a man with a mission most of the night and whilst, at times, suffering from the same lack of direction that his colleagues did, it felt like he was trying to make things happen.

The other reason it didn’t work? The Raiders played really well. This has obviously been written after the fact and yes, it was the Ethan James and Adam Laishram show and we’ll get to that but this wasn’t just road hockey 101, this was a throwback. Younger readers won’t remember the Sheffield Steeldogs of 2012/13. Coached by Andre Payette, everyone accused them too of being a two man team. Janis Ozolins made all the running up front, a young Ben Bowns was emerging as the talked about goalie in the league and everyone assumed the rest were there to make up the numbers. They weren’t. They just had the role of get in everyone else’s way.

The Raiders are not a two man team and on a different night they might have been able to do different things but this was all hands to the pumps. Why did James make so many spectacular saves? Firstly, he’s good but secondly if you look on the highlights, his defence have blocked all other options so the puck was going to one place and one place only. When that didn’t work, it was good goalie sense as evidenced in the second period where James made a superb post to post save where he happened to anticipate the move and then some good fortune. A post here, a scramble there, and at times Swindon almost conspiring to not score helped but guys played their system and they won out, made all the more impressive that they spent the last 5 minutes of the game on the penalty kill.

Adam Laishram, so often the fulcrum of the attack for the Raiders shone brightly in this game. His game winner was one of the best individual goals I might have seen since the turn of the year (I was in Slough for John Dunbar’s goal which might be my goal of the season) but it was all the little things that he managed to do with it. Swindon almost ended up respecting him too much as a result and that meant that they stood off him too much and when you give Laishram space, he will create for himself or someone else. The Raiders won not because Swindon were bad, but because on the night they did all the things they needed to do. It was a physical game but this was a mental win as again, Romford show up at the death of the season.

The above all comes in the context of the following night, a penalty shot win for the Raiders in Romford to set group B on a knife edge. Did this past weekend break the Wildcats? I don’t think so, but it might have given the Raiders the best and the worst thing possible, hope.

Lowlight of the night: Callum Wells taking a puck to the face on the bench in the third wasn’t nice.

Highlight of the night: The Raiders’ third goal is just superb.

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