AARON Nell praised Bracknell Bees for belying their lowly position and pushing his Swindon Wildcats all the way at the Link Centre on Sunday night.

With the Manchester Phoenix having withdrawn from the English Premier League, the Bees are the division’s basement boys but they looked nothing like a side that has only won five matches all season as they put Swindon through the wringer.

Bracknell raced into a 2-0 lead early in the first period and then forced Nell’s troops to recover two more losing situations, with the two teams eventually drawing 5-5.

Then, despite playing the majority of overtime short-handed, the Bees held firm and forced Swindon into a penalty shot contest for the second game in a row, Cats having lost a shoot-out at Milton Keynes Lightning on Saturday night.

But successful conversions from Jonas Hoog and Robin Kovar and two saves from Stevie Lyle saw the Cats win 2-1 to claim maximum points from a pulsating encounter.

“Bracknell were really good. They came out very hard and it was a really good game,” said Cats head coach Nell.

“We could have been better but how hard Bracknell played; you have to give them credit.

“The shoot-out’s a bit of a coin-flip and yesterday, we lost, and tonight, we won – we’re happy to get the two points.

“They came flying out the blocks and you’ve got to give them credit. They worked extremely hard tonight and we just had to relax a little bit, and get back to doing what makes us successful.

“We did get back to that. When we played hard and did the little things right, then we were successful, and when we weren’t doing it, that’s when they took over the game.

“It was a very up and down game – I’m sure it was a great game to watch – and we’re just thankful to get the win on penalty shots.

“Last night did take a lot out of us but we had enough today and I think we would have liked to have won it in normal time but fair play to Bracknell; they came extremely hard and I think they did to us what we did to Milton Keynes.

“I do think they played really well.”

Alex Barker and Luka Basic efforts had the Bees in the ascendancy early on but Robin Kovar halved the deficit before a stunning piece of invention from Tomasz Malasinski saw him spin full circle before flicking home to make it 2-2.

James Galazzi, who would later become embroiled in a bloody scrap with Kyle Smith, put the Bees back in front and despite Stevie Whitfield and a second from Kovar putting Cats ahead for the first time on the night, a Shaun Thompson brace made it 5-4 to Bracknell, only for Toms Rutkis to hit the all-important equaliser.

The Bees were short-handed in overtime due to Josh Tetlow’s late ejection for butt-ending but they still refused to roll over, with Swindon triumphing by way of winning the lottery of a penalty shoot-out.