RYAN Aldridge was relieved to confirm that any fears he may have had over his Swindon Wildcats effectively drawing a line under their season in the wake of last Thursday’s jarring Challenge Cup semi-final exit at the hands of the Manchester Phoenix were allayed at the Link Centre tonight.

The Wildcats gained a small slice of revenge as they shook off their midweek mauling in Manchester by beating their cup conquerors 4-2 in the third meeting between the two sides in the space of six days.

The atmosphere in West Swindon was subdued after face-off was delayed for more than an hour-and-a-half after the visitors were plagued by traffic problems on their journey to West Swindon but Aldridge was nonetheless delighted to see his men navigate a tense and challenging clash.

“It’s tough because you don’t want to keep talking about the other night – we want to forget about it – but the reality is that you have to,” said the Wildcats head coach.

“With the kind of team we’ve got, with how young we are and how we’ve been in years past, we quite easily could have shut it down for the rest of the year.

“So I was impressed with the boys scraping through and getting that win, especially under the circumstances.

“Obviously they were under the same circumstances but it’s tough when you’re messing around before a game. You don’t know when you’re going to do your routine and start your routine.

“We kept getting different messages with different times and stuff like that, so it is tough. When guys are in here, you start losing focus and start messing around with each other and all sorts of stuff.

“So, it’s a big two points for us.

“The young kids were away on the other night and were away tonight, so we were short-benched tonight.

“Luckily, we’ve got tomorrow night off and I think the last couple of weeks have been a bit up and down and all over the place because of cup games and midweek games, so I think the boys need to have a little day with the family or with the boys just to unwind a little bit, especially after Thursday night.

“Stay away from hockey for a few days, regain our focus again in practice and hopefully go turn it around again.”

After missing out on a cup final, the focus of the season shifts straight to the English Premier League play-offs for the Wildcats.

Aldridge said: “We’ve got to get into the play-offs. A lot of teams worry about who they’re playing but we don’t want to sit and focus on that – we want to go as high as we can in the league.

“That play-off weekend is our main focus now. There’s no doubt about that.”