THE SWINDON Wildcats’ hunt for a home league victory wore on this evening as they suffered a 5-2 defeat at the hands of the Sheffield Steeldogs.

Ryan Aldridge’s men twice came from behind at the Link Centre in one of their most entertaining clashes of the season but two mistakes allowed the visitors to take full advantage and head back to South Yorkshire with the points.

Coach Aldridge opted to keep his own counsel after the match, opting to pick through the bones of his team's loss in the confines of the dressing room.

The two sides got to grips with each other from the buzzer as Shane Moore and Steeldogs coach Andre Payette downed gloves straight away to engage in an organised dust-up.

When the match finally got underway, Swindon got themselves off to the worst possible start as they found themselves a goal down with less than three minutes gone.

Sheffield’s Andrew Hirst worked his way around the back of the Wildcats goal with ease and cut the put back to allow Lubomir Korhon the simplest of tap-ins.

After a scrappy start, the two side finally settled into a rhythm and Swindon threatened through both Adam Harding, Jan Kostal and Henri Sandvik as the first period wore on.

Lee Richardson’s superb pass flew straight onto the stick of Sandvik as the Wildcats attacked with purpose again but netminder Brad Day was equal to his effort.

But with just over a minute of the period remaining, Tomasz Malasinski was in the right place at the right time to net a deserved equaliser for the home side, with the Polish winger finding the net moments after goalie Day had denied Aaron Nell.

Moore and Payette resumed hostilities early on in the second period and the Swindon man turned up the volume in the Link Centre as he gestured to the crowd to raise the roof on his way to the sin bin.

The Wildcats began the period strongly but almost out of nowhere, found themselves 2-1 down as Ben Morgan’s strike from distance deceived the Swindon defence and crept into the net.

But it took just moments for the home side to hit back and whip up the atmosphere to fever pitch as Sandvik turned home from close range and celebrated in style, climbing the boards and pumping his fist with joy.

It could easily have been 3-2 moments later as Nell’s sublime strike cracked against the corner of the post but an untimely slip from the Swindon man during a powerplay allowed Jeff Legue to drive towards goal unchallenged and jink past goalie Lyle before netting.

With the Wildcats striving to get back on level terms again, the third period got off to an incident-free start before a powerplay, in favour of Swindon after Cameron Brownley had gone in the bin, saw Nell rain down three powerful attempts on the Sheffield goal.

Ashley Calvert went close for the Steeldogs whilst Jan Kostal and Nell both tested the Sheffield netminder some more.

With the hosts pushing for parity, they suffered a suckerpunch at the other end of the rink as Lyle’s underhit clearance fell into the patch of Lloyd Gibson, who skated forward and beat the Swindon stopper at his near post to make it 4-2.

It was a cruel blow for the home side and injury was added to insult late on as, after pushing goalie Lyle off in place of an additional outfield player, Swindon paid the price as Legue smacked into an empty net to rub salt in the wounds.