Swindon Wildcats forward Adam Harding says his team’s third period collapse in Saturday’s 9-8 win over Bracknell Bees was “unacceptable” and called on his teammates to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Bracknell looked dead and buried at 8-1 down three minutes into the final period, but Lukas Smital’s strike at 51.31 tied things up to leave the home crowd stunned.

Neither team could break the deadlock in normal time and after a scoreless extra period it was Harding who grabbed the deciding goal in the subsequent shoot-out.

He said: “I’ve never seen a game like that in my entire life. I guess the fans must have loved it – 16 goals, a fight, a shootout, I mean what more could you ask for in a game really?

“But it was unacceptable as well. Going 8-1 up in a game and then for them to come back, I don’t know what happened but it can’t happen again.

“It was just one of those nights and they were alright goals, some of them were a bit scrappy but it is hard to tell. I’m still trying to figure out in my own head what happened.

“It was just goal after goal after goal and we could not stop them. It wasn’t as if we stopped working – we just couldn’t stop it.

“At the same time, we thought the game was over and I think that was in our heads, and then we had a rude awakening when they tied it up.

“I don’t know what was going through my head at the time – it was crazy.”

In addition to grabbing the deciding goal, Harding scored in regular time and also had a punch-up, but he wasn’t happy with this overall performance.

“I don’t think I skated hard enough and I could have played a lot better,” he added. “I scored a goal, but it was my line-mates who did all the work. I was just in the right place at the right time.

“The fight was a good fight and the penalty shot winner I just got lucky.”

(Image permission: Nick Pearce)