Telford Tigers move to brink of league title after 'clinical' win
Telford Tigers head coach Tom Watkins was thrilled with his side’s response as they moved to the brink of the NIHL National League title.
The Tigers could clinch the crown as early as Friday, if rivals Swindon Wildcats slip up – though it will be in their own hands when they travel to MK Lightning on Saturday.
A point is all Telford need after seeing off Leeds Knights 6-2 at Telford Ice Rink on Sunday.
“It was a really positive performance, we were really solid and very clinical,” said Watkins. “Considering we were playing our third game in three days and given that every game we played had a lot of importance attached to it our energy, work-rate and commitment was excellent and we were very professional.”
The Tigers had lost the first leg of the National Cup final to Sheffield on Friday night before going down to Swindon Wildcats on Saturday, missing the chance to secure the title. For the Leeds game, Ross Connolly and Brodie Jesson were the only absentees from the line-up, with Tigers able to welcome back Jack Watkins after a lengthy absence from the team.
Two penalties were killed before Tigers took the lead with a piece of individual brilliance from Bayley Harewood. The Tigers’ forward won the puck on the Leeds’ blue line, beat three players with his stick handling, fed the puck to Joe Aston who sent it back towards Harewood to smash past Sam Gospel in the Leeds goal. Telford netted from their first power play of the day when Vladimir Luka hammered home, and the opening minute of the second period saw a third goal for Telford – this time from Jack Hopkins.
Leeds pulled one back, but the Tigers quickly restored their three-goal cushion thanks to Harewood’s second of the match.
With Tigers back to their fluent best, a fifth goal arrived from Luka – and Hopkins put the seal on it before a Leeds consolation at the start of the final period.
