THE REALISATION that there isn’t long left of his spell in charge of the Swindon Wildcats dawned on head coach Ryan Aldridge midway through this evening’s game at the Manchester Phoenix.

But before he can get misty-eyed and contemplative, the Link Centre chief, who is set to step away from his post at the end of the current campaign, has to concentrate on getting his team to the English Premier League finals weekend in Coventry next month.

Swindon were pipped to fourth in the table on the final evening of the regular season after a dramatic 6-5 loss at the Altrincham Ice Dome, with play-off opponents Peterborough Phantoms now likely to choose home advantage for next Sunday’s quarter-final second leg.

“For the first time tonight, I was on the bench thinking ‘oh yeah, it’s nearly done’. I don’t think emotional is the right word but I’m starting to think about it,” said Aldridge.

“It’s obviously getting close but we’ve got bigger things to worry about.

“I’m thinking about getting through next weekend, getting to Coventry, and then we change our focus again.

“My last game’s going to come sooner or later. For the team, we want to get to Coventry and do some damage in Coventry.

“When you get to Coventry, it’s an even bigger buzz and hopefully the boys will be up for the play-offs to get us there.”

The Wildcats were left frustrated after conceding a decisive sixth goal with 26 seconds left on the clock on Sunday evening but Aldridge is hoping that the order of his side’s quarter-final showdowns with Peterborough next weekend won’t matter much in the long run.

He said: “We’ve still got to beat them twice, haven’t we?

“Obviously, we would have liked to call which game was home and which game was away but it is what it is – we’ve still got to beat them by more goals.

“Over the whole course of the night, we had a lot of chances that we didn’t put way but defensively we weren’t as good as we were (on Saturday).

“But we’ve had a lot of chances to score goals and that’s one positive that we’ve got going in to next weekend – our forwards are flying offensively now.

“It feels like we’ve been knocked out of the play-offs but at the end of the day, it just doesn’t matter. We’re still playing the same team.”