RYAN Aldridge admitted that some of his Swindon Wildcats players thought that their final Challenge Cup game was going to be a walk in the park but was nonetheless pleased to see his team progress into the semi-finals.

The Wildcats secured a top-two finish in the South group with a professional 6-2 win at the National League Chelmsford Chieftains.

Jonas Hoog and Adam Harding netted braces whilst Aaron Nell and Tomasz Malasinski were also on target as Aldridge’s men pipped Milton Keynes Lightning to a place in the semi-finals courtesy of their superior head-to-head record, despite finishing level on points with the Buckinghamshire side and Guildford Flames.

Swindon were ahead with just ten seconds on the clock.

“Scoring so early put us on the back burner really and we thought it was going to be an easy night but a win’s a win,” said Aldrdige.

“In the third period, we scored some big goals and we needed that win to progress and we’re pleased we’ve got it.

“I didn’t think some of the guys worked hard enough tonight, even the younger guys, and we wanted to get Crispy(Michael Crisp) on the ice tonight and we’ve kind of let him down by not playing hard enough to get up.

“We didn’t work hard enough - we thought it was going to be easy. We took them too lightly but we still won and won quite convincingly.

“Some of the guys really just don’t get up for these kind of games. Some people treat that as a weakness I guess but you’ve got to finish everybody off at the end of the day.

“These kind of teams don’t play so much of a system like people do in our league so people seem to be on you or in your way or where they shouldn’t be, and that’s frustrating sometimes.”

The Link Centre chief, who saw his team’s ten-match winning run come to an end in Saturday’s 3-1 league loss to Guildford, added: “It’s outstanding for us, for the last three years we’ve been talking about it and we’ve not had as good a start as this so it’s good for the club, no doubt about that,” he said.

“It will be an extra home gate for the club which will help us out and everything about progressing is good for us.”