SWINDON Wildcats coach Ryan Aldridge was pleased that his side remained respectful to the Wightlink Raiders during their 3-0 victory in the Challenge Cup tonight.

Goals from Aaron Nell, Ollie Betteridge and Lee Richardson saw the Wildcats, who fielded a number of youngsters, take the points.

Aldridge thought that both teams honoured a pre-match gentleman’s agreement and was pleased that his team refrained from sticking it to lower league opposition.

“We just wanted to concentrate on the win, I think. We probably could have scored a few more but there’s a time and a place and we didn’t want to embarrass them,” said the Swindon chief.

“We wanted to get the win and let the young kids play. I spoke to their coach before the game and he said ‘what’s the deal?’ and I said that we’re probably going to play a lot of kids, and to be fair to them, I thought they were pretty respectable to our young players, for the most part.

“So it’s a bit of give and take.

“We wanted to play our young kids. A win’s a win, especially in the cup. It was quite routine but they’re always tough games because you don’t know what to expect - I thought out boys did quite well tonight.”

The Wildcats are back in English Premier League action tomorrow (face-off 5.30pm) as they make the trip to the Peterborough Phantoms and the Aldridge isn’t expecting an easy time in Cambridgeshire.

He said: “They’ve got a very deep line-up this year. They’ve been playing very well and won some big game so far.

“It’s a tough game to play in. It’s a very ugly game of hockey.

“The ice isn’t great, the boards aren’t great and you can’t make many tape-to-tape passes.

“Whatever we get there tomorrow, we’re going to have to work hard for – to come away with points would be massive.”

Jan Kostal narrowly failed to get the finishing touch on an early Swindon opening before an incisive counter-attack saw Adam Harding skate forward with purpose before feeding into the path of Kostal but netminder Christian Cole was quick off his line for make a smart stop.

But Nell finally broke the deadlock, striding forward before confidently dispatching a shot into the top left-hand corner of the net.

Swindon wasted no time doubling their lead and just minutes later, Betteridge provided the goods as he turned the puck home to make it 2-0.

The hosts almost netted a third when Stevie Whitfield pinged an effort against the underside of the crossbar before the visitors’ Jaroslav Cesky forced a save from Lyle with a ferocious effort late in the period.

A Wightlink counter-attack early in the second period saw Lyle save superbly from Corey Watkins but up the other end, after Whitfield fed Nell and his effort was blocked, Lee Richardson arrived to blast home past a despairing Cole.

Despite being down to four men during a Raiders powerplay, Betteridge fired wide of the mark following a fortunate ricochet that sent the home side breaking away on the counter.

And as the period wore on, it was all one-way traffic as the home side dominated proceedings, but, despite Symonds’ powerful slapshot during a powerplay in favour of the home side, Swindon failed to build on their advantage further.

Early in the third period, Betteridge turned the puck just wide of the mark from Harding’s delivery whilst at the other end, replacement netminder Michael Crisp saved well from Ricky Attrill.

A well-worked Swindon move ended with Sam Bullas looking as though he just had the finishing touch to apply but Cole dived low and stretched out a glove to pull off a superb save.

The hosts looked rarely troubled in the final period but the Raiders did carve out an opportunity to hit back, with Cornish flashing a shot wide following a clever cut-back.

And Wightlink player-coach Cornish played his part in a late skirmish with Swindon’s Bullas, with the two players taking exception with each other following a melee in front of the Raiders goalmouth.

The duo downed gloves and helmets and had it out on the ice, before both being sin-binned.

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