SWINDON Wildcats surrendered a two-goal lead to lose 5-4 on penalty shots against London Raiders.

Player-coach Aaron Nell watched his side ease into a 2-0 lead, as Nell notched in the sixth minute, before Max Birbraer made it two.

The Cats then experienced a nightmare 40 seconds which saw the hosts restore parity in the 31st minute.

Floyd Taylor then stepped up to score Swindon’s third, as the Cats took a slender lead into the final period.

In the third, Sam Bullas doubled the advantage for Nell’s side, before the Cats folded for the second time by conceding another two goals to take the game into overtime.

In overtime, neither side were able to find a way though, sending the game to penalty shots, in which it was the home side who were able to get the all important winner, as they inflicted a costly league defeat on the Cats.

Nell, who scored the first goal for the Link Centre side admits the defeat was a costly one.

"It was a disappointing performance because we were in good positions twice," he said.

"We let the lead slip and it is so frustrating, but, that is life and that is hockey so we just need to bounce back on Saturday and get two bit points.

"In the second period we went soft and to be fair to the team we have been playing hard.

"It's frustrating that we went a little bit soft like that, because they came hard all over the ice.

"We had a game plan to chip the puck over the blue line and we didn't do it.

"It's a costly defeat, it's not ideal and we wanted to get two points.

"All we can do now is take it a game at a time, even if we had won, we were still relying on favours from other teams."

The Cats are back in action at the weekend when they welcome Basingstoke Bison at the Link Centre.

Swindon will be without skipper Jan Kostal, who is out with injury.