THE Bespoke Guardians Swindon Wildcats suffered a winless weekend after defeats to Leeds Knights and Sheffield Steeldogs in the Autumn Cup.

Aaron Nell’s men fell 7-3 at home to Leeds on Friday night before a 7-2 reverse away in Sheffield on Saturday.

After only securing two points in the opening weekend of Autumn Cup action, the Wildcats were looking to build on that against Leeds. Unfortunately, the hosts were punished for a lacklustre start to the game combined with a red hot netminder in Sam Gospel throughout.

Two goals down at the break, Eddie Bebris missed the chance to equalise via a penalty shot midway through the first period.

Leeds netted their third and fourth goals early in the second before Nell registered the Wildcats’ first in the 37th minute.

An exciting end to the second period saw Chris Jones score, but two further Knights goals dampened the home team’s spirit somewhat.

Emil Svec bagged a third as thoughts of a comeback began to surface, yet Leeds would go on to score twice more to put paid to those hopes.

On Saturday night, the Wildcats started well and found themselves 2-1 up at the end of the first period as Svec scored both to take his weekend tally to three.

Yet, the middle period on Saturday was one to forget for Nell’s men as Sheffield struck four times to completely turn the game on its head. Goals in the middle period came from Matt Bissonnette - his second of the night - Lee Bonner, Nathan Ripley and Jason Hewitt.

In the final period, the Steeldogs were able to control the game defensively but also extend their lead by two more thanks to goals from Sam Towner and Charlie Thompson.

The buzzer sounded on a rotten weekend for the Wildcats who will look to bounce back in style on Friday evening in Milton Keynes before hosting the Peterborough Phantoms on Saturday at the Link Centre.