SWINDON Wildcats head coach Ryan Aldridge questioned the desire of his players as he watched them fall to a second defeat in as many nights.

Aldridge, who believes his team must play at 100 per cent to win hockey games, thought his side were out-fought in their 3-1 defeat to MK Lightning.

Played in front of a crowd of more than 1,200 at the Link Centre, Aldridge’s men looked flat as they failed to respond to a 2-1 defeat at Basingstoke Bison on Saturday night.

First period power-play goals from Stanislav Lascek and Tomasz Malasinski kept the scores level at the end of the first 20 minutes but Milan Kostourek restored the visitors lead in the second.

Blaz Emersic scored a fine solo effort to give Lightning a comfortable cushion and the Cats looked out of options as they found Stephen Wall to me an immovable force in goal. “We got beat by two teams that had more desire to win than us,” said Aldridge. “They won the 50/50 battles in key areas and they were more deserving than us, as simple as that.

“Our high end isn’t good enough right now.

“For us to win a hockey game everything has to be perfect and it obviously isn’t going to be perfect every night.

“I think we just got beat by a team that are probably similar to us as a line-up, I would still take my team over theirs but we have got to have the desire to win a hockey game.

“I think that desire for me is inside you. Some players it is there every night, some people it comes in and out, and it is different for different teams.

“We have to work and compete with them at the same level and then our talent plays their talent but tonight we didn’t.”

There was a big delay to the start of the third period last night as team owner Steve Nell was unhappy with the condition of the ice.

The Zamboni was sent on again to clear the ice, much to the frustration of the MK Lightning coach Nick Poole who Aldridge described as a baby after the game.

“He’s a baby,” said Aldridge when asked about the incident.

“The ice wasn’t good enough and he was in the referees changing room and he thought we were sulking about the ice because he thought there was something wrong with one of our players, which there wasn’t.

“Steve (Nell) wasn’t happy with the ice, you pay a fee it should be right and he was sulking about that.”