SWINDON Wildcats head coach Ryan Aldridge felt that his side gave their best performance of the season at the Link Centre last night against Basingstoke Bison despite being on the end of a 4-2 defeat.

Cats put in a much improved display but Aldridge could not hide the fact that his side are still yet to win a league game in five attempts in front of their own fans.

Swindon were the better side for much of the contest but it was Ciaran Long who opened the scoring for the visiting side in the first period, before Wildcats captain Jan Kostal brought the game back level.

Aaron Connolly put Bison back in the lead just a minute later, with Aaron Nell cancelling out in the second before Mirsolav Vantroba swept the puck home from the blue line to restore the visitors lead. Bison secured their win in the final minute through Joe Rand with two Cats in the sin bin.

“That is probably the best home performance of the year and I thought we deserved more out of that,” said Aldridge who was in a more upbeat mood than the previous evening.

“I thought for the most part of the game we were the better team so I have got to take positives out of that.

“I thought everybody showed up and worked hard for 60 minutes. We didn’t get the win but we deserved more than what we got.

“They have to play like that every night there is no doubt about that.

“They have proved on the road how they can play, they have proved tonight how they can play at home and if they played like that last night (against Sheffield Steeldogs) we would have won 6-1 or 6-2.”

After a dressing down by Aldridge the night before, Swindon started the game full of intent and purpose but the visitors had their net minder Dean Skinns to thank for keeping them in it.

On several occasions he was able to use every inch of his body to keep a Swindon side lacking in confidence in front of goal out.

“He (Dean Skinns) made some saves tonight which I don’t think he knew he made. He made six saves where I don’t think he knew where they were, two or three dropped right in front of him and he still didn’t know where they were.

“We just weren’t there to put them in and when you are in a slump that is what happens for you so we have just got to grind it out now.”