SWINDON suffered their second English Premier League defeat of the weekend to in-form Slough last night despite virtually matching their opponents shot-for-shot.

The Wildcats rained in 46 efforts on goal as their hosts fired 49, but Ryan Aldridge’s men found themselves beaten 6-3 at the Hangar.

The visitors faced a mammoth task after conceding three early goals as Darius Pliskauskas (3.44), Doug Sheppard (6.07) and Adam Calder (9.52) helped Slough to a 3-0 lead.

Jonas Hoog pulled one back at 11.15 but Joe Greener restored the three-goal advantage at 36.15.

Slough’s Slava Koulikov got in on the act at the start of the third, before Joe Baird struck on the powerplay at 55.21, assisted by Jozef Liska.

Baird reduced the hosts’ lead further at 58.35 as Jan Melichar and Lee Richardson provided the assists, but it was too late for the visitors to complete a comeback.

“It’s frustrating, although some of their shots were a lot cleaner than ours, said Aldridge, when questioned about the evenness of the shooting stats.

“We just didn’t do our job defensively, the first three goals were literally given to them, they were just silly mistakes.

“In the third period we had some pride and won the period for our fans, so we have some momentum going into Thursday night (against Telford).

“But we’re short-benched at the moment and there are guys having 30 minutes of ice time which is definitely tough on the body.” On Saturday, Slough began the weekend in the same ruthless form that they finished it, whitewashing Swindon 7-0 at the Link Centre.

The Jets opened the scoring on the powerplay in the first period, with Pliskauskas tucking into the net. Swindon could not convert chances of their own towards the end of the opening 20 minutes, and midway through the second period Dan Davies netted a scrappy goal for the visitors.

Goal number three arrived in the 35th minute through ex-Wildcat Ryan Watt, and on the powerplay three minutes later Pliskauskas burst down the wing and slotted home.

Swindon had out-shot their visitors in the first two periods, but found themselves further behind at 51:34, when Pliskauskas collected his hat-trick after his wrist shot rocketed in off the crossbar.

Nine seconds on, Calder pounced on the loose puck to add a sixth, and moments later Shaun Thompson powered a shot in off the crossbar.