SWINDON Wildcats player-coach Aaron Nell has said his side have to learn from their disappointment after falling to a 3-2 aggregate defeat against Guildford Flames in the play-off quarter-finals.

Having taken a 2-1 lead into the second leg at the Spectrum last night, courtesy of a brace from Tomasz Malasinski at the Link Centre, the Wildcats came out of the blocks strongly.

However, they were pegged back two minutes into the second period when Daniel Meyers was left unmarked at the back post to level the tie.

Meyers’ second of the evening gave Guildford the lead with 11 minutes of the game remaining and Swindon were unable to find a way past Richard Ullberg to force overtime as they bowed out of the play-offs.

“It was a good two games and at the end of the day they had that little bit more,” said Nell after the game.

“We thought that might happen. They are a very good team.

“It was just a bounce here and a bounce there and it could have been different.

“It is the play-offs. It is always going to be tough and in front of that net is the toughest place to play in hockey.

“Right at the end we had a chance to score and they had a guy lying on the puck but all I asked is that we worked hard for the 120 minutes, which we did.

“They are experienced and they are a very good team and that just prevailed in the end.”

Swindon were forced to kill a five minute penalty in the first period as Adam Harding was penalised for high sticks on Matt Towe, having drawn blood, but were unable to find the net despite having a two-man advantage on the ice at one stage.

“We made a great kill in that first period and the first goal was big and we made a little mistake on the second goal and that is the game,” added Nell.

“We had good chances tonight and we knew they would have more of the puck and we would have to catch them on the break and that was always going to be the case.

“We came up short and we are all gutted in there and we have got to learn from it.”

Nell is happy to put a ‘crazy’ season behind him and will now look to building a team for next season to build on what they have achieved.

“We have had a good year,” he concluded.

“We have had 30 wins in a very competitive league and I know we finished sixth but it is our best points total in a long time and we have got to improve on that now.

“Every year we have got to get better. If that means we get 66 points next year, we need to get better.”