STEVIE Lyle claims his teammates must up their workrate if they are to beat “bogey team” Milton Keynes Lightning tonight at the Link Centre.

Swindon Wildcats haven’t beaten Lightning in any of the four games they’ve played this season with MK racking up three EPL Cup wins over the Cats back in October, including two wins at the Link.

Then last month Ryan Aldridge’s side were undone by two strikes early in the second period at the Coventry Skydome.

Cats’ goalie Lyle feels his team haven’t been getting the bounce of the puck against the Buckinghamshire club but they need to be working harder to win games.

He said: “I don’t know what it is to be honest, it’s not like they’ve controlled the games, I guess they are our bogey team to date.

“Every time we play them they just find a way to win.

“I think it comes down to work ethic, that was the problem on Saturday.

“Bracknell worked hard for the whole 60 minutes and the spells we weren’t controlling the game we didn’t.”

The Wildcats had been enjoying a decent spell of form at the start of the month.

“They have now lost two of their last three and Lyle acknowledges their performances as a team have been flat in recent weeks.

“The last three games we haven’t been playing well as a team.

“We need to step up a bit more, that’s from me to the forwards, we can’t win games if we don’t work hard for all three periods.”

In front of a sell-out crowd at the Link Centre on Saturday the consensus from the home team was that they didn’t put in the hard yards.

Lyle was keen to stress that is not acceptable as the season moves towards its business end.

“I don’t know if we deserved to win against Bracknell on Saturday.

“We came out and didn’t work hard enough.

“I think they outshot us by something like 20.

“When you’re at home you shouldn’t be outshot by the away team unless you’re playing the Manchesters or Basignstokes, I think every guy knows that.”

After the game head coach Ryan Aldridge and owner Steve Nell gave the team a dressing down that Great Britain goalie Lyle said they deserved.

“I think we needed them. What he said on Saturday was the truth, if you can’t accept that then you’re playing the wrong sport.

“Hopefully a different team can come out tomorrow night and work for the whole 60 minutes.”

Lyle wants the Cats to use the game against Milton Keynes to put their foot back on the gas after it seemed they had started to believe they had already made the play-offs a couple of weeks ago.

“It would be nice to win for the mental side to pick up the win and start overtaking a few teams above us.

“You can’t think you’re already there (the play-offs) as the teams below you are always looking move up.”