SWINDON Wildcats player-coach Aaron Nell conceded they were well beaten by the better team on the night as they fell to a 5-2 defeat at home to Peterborough Phantoms.

Ales Padelek and Tomasz Malasinski cancelled each other out in the first period before Milan Baranyk gave the visitors a second period lead.

Two goals in 20 third-period seconds from Baranyk and Lloyd Gibson put Peterborough in control and, despite Kan Kostal’s strike 10 minutes from time, Craig Scott secured Peterborough the two points to the disappointment of Nell.

“We were beat by the better team tonight and there are no excuses,” he said.

“You could tell in the first five minutes that we weren’t at all cylinders and that is tough.

“Peterborough are very well drilled and very good defensively so you can’t get too frustrated.

“You have just got to push that little bit harder and we were lucky to come out of the first period at 1-1 and in the second period we hit two or three posts and if one of those go in it is a different hockey game.

“I hit two posts and if one of those goes in then I would have put my money on us winning the game.

“We just didn’t get that bounce tonight and they got the lucky bounces and they deserved it.

“They were very good tonight and played a good road game and got the two points they deserved.

“We had a tough night at the office and we have got to bounce back tomorrow night.

“We can’t have two of those games in a row.

“It is not the time to get down on ourselves or down on each other, we have got to move forward now.”

The challenge gets no easier for Swindon as they travel to Basingstoke Bison tomorrow night, with the hosts needing a win to secure the English Premier League title.

However, Nell is looking for his side to ensure that the celebrations are put on ice for another week as they look to go into the play-offs with momentum.

“We’ve got three games left before the play-offs and we have got to build,” added Nell.

“We can’t go into the play-offs being flat, we did that last year and it bit us in the bum.

“We have got to come ready to play tomorrow night. We don’t want to be in Basingstoke when they win the league, that’s for sure.

“We have got to go hard and we want to be the spoilers to their party.”