SWINDON Wildcats coach Ryan Aldridge was pleased to see his side stand up to the Bracknell Bees and stay on course for a comfortable victory at their near neighbours tonight.

Swindon got back to winning ways in both the English Premier League and the Challenge Cup with a 4-1 win at the John Nike Leisure Centre, with Tomasz Malasinski, Lee Richardson, Jan Kostal and Alex Symonds all on target.

In the final period, hosts Bracknell set about attempting to intimidate the Wildcats but Aldridge pointed to two incidents – Kenton Smith’s fight with Scott Spearing after Shane Moore was whacked from behind and Sam Bullas' dust-up with former team-mate Ryan Watt – of examples of his side standing up to be counted.

“Especially in the third period, I thought we had team toughness,” said Aldridge.

“It was a bad hit from behind and Kenton jumped in to stick up for him. They were obviously trying to fight Jani, which can’t happen, and Bully stepped up and won his fight, so it was good team toughness.

“Speaking to the referee, I knew there were going to be penalties (in the third period) and he said ‘don’t worry, I’ve got my eyes on it’. It’s the way they play and obviously, losing in their own building, they’re going to come out like that. I thought we reacted to it well.

“We didn’t want to get involved in it, especially our top players, but we talk about Bully and Moorsy being out team toughness guys and they proved that tonight.

“I obviously didn’t watch much of (Bullas’ fight with Watt) because I was too busy nearly fighting myself on the bench – I heard he won it pretty easily, so that was good.”

Aldridge was also delighted to see his team return to winning ways and bring their four-match losing run to an end.

The Swindon chief added: “It was a cup game as well, so it was a massive game for us.

“We want to move forward in that cup.

“After the last four games, it was a massive win - we needed a win.

“It’s a tough barn to go and play in because of how they play. Tonight we played for 60 minutes.

“Every shift, we played hard. We made a couple of mistakes in the D-zone tonight but they didn’t cost us.”