Guildford Player/Coach Paul Dixon is hoping Flames can bounce back from defeat at Sheffield Steeldogs by progressing to the final of the EPL Cup on Wednesday night.

Flames went into Sunday’s game at on the back of a 4-3 overtime success at home to Manchester Phoenix the previous evening, and looked set to follow up when they led 4-2 entering the final minute.

However, Arnoldas Bosas had other ideas as he scored twice in quick succession to send the game to overtime and then followed up with the winner two minutes into the extra period.

The result saw Flames collect three points from the weekend’s games and left Dixon scratching his head.

“Sometimes you can go away with a three-point haul and feel pretty good about things, but the way this happened it’s hard not to think about the lost point rather than the gained point,” he said.

“To get within about 50 seconds of a two-goal win yet end up losing in overtime is agonisingly frustrating.

“There’s no excuse for players of our experience letting that one slip away, but we’re going to have to move on because we can’t change it now.

“We have to try to remember it’s three points out of four and we played a good game on Saturday to gain success against Manchester as part of that.

“We have to re-focus our attention now on Basingstoke for Wednesday’s second leg of the cup semi-final.

“It’s a great opportunity to be able to move into the championship round and we can’t waste energy now being worried about past results.”

Matt Towe (above) scored the only goal in last week’s first leg to give Flames a narrow advantage heading into tomorrow’s game against Bison.

The winners of the tie play Peterborough Phantoms in the final.

(Image permission: Alan Bone)