DESPITE claiming three points from the weekend's action, The Bespoke Guardians Swindon Wildcats have seen their National Ice Hockey League title hopes all but disappear.

Aaron Nell's men cruised to a 5-3 victory over The Bees during Saturday night's contest before losing in overtime to the Peterborough Phantoms 24 hours later.

However, Telford Tigers' double success over Basingstoke Bison pushed the Shropshire outfit nine points clear of Swindon with six games to play.

The Tigers can now wrap up the regular season crown with a victory at the Link Centre this coming weekend.

On Saturday, Chris Jones netted the only goal of the first period at 17:38 to put the hosts on the right path.

Balint Pakozdi then scored a minute and 13 seconds into the middle stanza to double the Cats' lead, and Nell added a third home goal at 24:31.

Seconds after 25 game minutes had been completed, promising youngster Jack Goodchild joined in on the action to make it 4-0.

However, the second half of the contest was much more even battle. Will Stead pulled a goal back at 27:45 before Josh Smith netted on a powerplay seconds before the buzzer.

The Wildcats' head coach nudged the lead back up to three midway through the third period, and with that it appeared as though the victory was safe.

Juha Lindgren snatched the final goal of the game with two minutes to play, but it was Swindon who took the spoils.

On Sunday, Swindon went behind early when Ales Padelek latched onto slick build-up from Will Weldon and Duncan Speirs to slot past Renny Marr.

But the visitors responded quickly as Emil Svec netted his first and only goal of the weekend in the 17th minute.

Weldon helped the Phantoms re-take the lead a quarter of the way into the middle period, a lead the hosts held for 20 minutes before defenceman Tyler Plews tied the game up at two.

Aiming for their first four-point weekend since mid-January, Swindon allowed Padelek to find room on his backhand side before striking home and clinching the extra point in overtime.