SWINDON completed a comfortable 3-0 victory against Wightlink Raiders to earn two much-needed Challenge Cup points.

The lower league side caused the visitors plenty of problems on a small rink but three goals in the second period killed off the game as a contest.

Head coach Ryan Aldridge said before the match that his side might struggle with the size of the rink at Ryde, describing it as a ‘pond’.

That proved to be the case as Swindon took a while to get into the first period, which ended goalless.

Swindon welcomed back Jonas Hoog to the starting line-up, with Henrik Sandvik and Tomasz Malasinski both missing the trip to the south coast, and the Swede looked rusty in the opening parts of the game.

The best chance of the first period fell to the hosts when Stephen Balmer found himself in front of goal with just Lyle to beat but that proved to be an impossible task despite two attempts as the veteran stopper kept the scores level.

Swindon were restricted to long shots and first-time efforts in the first period with Aldridge encouraging his sides to take plenty of shots from the sidelines.

Swindon got their break-through in the 25th minute when Callum Buglass took aim wide on the left and his deflected shot was enough to beat Matthew Colclough in goal.

Swindon doubled their lead through skipper Jan Kostal in the 31st minute. Ollie Betteridge saw a shot from behind goal pushed away from the net by Colclough but it landed at the feet of the captain on the blue line to fire home.

Swindon got a third a minute before the second period break when the puck fell to Stevie Whitfield on the blue line on the right hand side and his first time shot found the net.

The home-side did not give up though and put Stevie Lyle’s goal under a lot of pressure in the third period but Swindon did enough to prevent them from scoring and claim the two-points.