Tom Watkins lambasts Telford Tigers after home ‘embarrassment’

Just 24 hours earlier, Tigers had beaten the Pitbulls on their home ice to break a nine-game losing streak.

However, any thoughts of a second win on the bounce for Tigers in front of their own bumper crowd at Telford Ice Rink were quickly dispelled as they were dismantled from the beginning.

In front of a packed crowd, Telford needed a strong performance but fell apart in the opening period conceding four goals and had Deakan Fielder ejected from the game for fighting.

Ben Solder opened the scoring for Bristol and was followed by goals from Nik Coric, Josh Shaw and Bayley Harewood to put Bristol 4-0 ahead.

Fielder was then ejected for fighting giving Bristol a seven-minute power play. Solder added a further goal followed by goals for Morgan Clarke-Pizzo and Caly Robertson to give Bristol a 7-0 lead.

Sam Watkins hit back with a power play goal to get Telford on the scoreboard but Bristol scored again through Christian Mohr to lead 8-1 at the end of the second period.

Robertson scored another power play goal - Bristol’s fifth power play goal of the game - late in the third period to complete the scoring and end a miserable night for the home fans.

After the game, furious head coach Watkins said his side ‘did nothing for the first 60 minutes’.

He added: “What an embarrassing, pathetic home performance against a team that we beat in the previous game.

“We were in front of our biggest home crowd of the season. Bristol skated around us like we weren’t there and our players did nothing about it for 60 minutes.”

Watkins continued: “That just might be one of the poorest performances I’ve seen in my tenure as coach.

“We had zero grit, zero energy and were defensively inept.

“We couldn’t sustain any offensive pressure or protect the puck and we gave up odd man rush after odd man rush and one pass would beat all three forwards out of the offensive zone, our defence got beaten one on one every time. I could go on and on.”