Telford Tigers‘ Head Coach Tom Watkins was delighted to see his team start their EPL campaign with a road win against reigning champions Basingstoke Bison.

Tigers secured a 4-1 victory over Bison and followed up with a 4-1 home victory against Manchester Phoenix, leaving Watkins content with the weekend’s work.

“It was an excellent win at Basingstoke and I’m very pleased with the performance from our guys. To come and beat the league champions in their own rink is a big positive step for us.

“It instills a lot of belief in what we’ve been doing over the last few weeks. We kept on rolling the lines and I think that was very important, along with some great finishing in the first period.

“We were then solid throughout the game and that took the pressure off. It was disappointing that we took some penalties later on, as we couldn’t roll the lines as we wanted, but we got the win, which is important.”

Tigers were one down against Phoenix after the first period, but roared back with four unanswered goals in the second half of the game.

“It can’t get any better for us to open the league with a four-point weekend,” added Watkins.

“I don’t think our performance was quite as good against Manchester, but the result was there – I couldn’t ask any more.

“Credit to Manchester, as I thought they worked hard throughout the sixty minutes and were dangerous, with their imports on the ice every other shift.

“I’m happy with our performance this weekend. We’ve got to come to play every night, and need to be mentally prepared to play ten players, 22 players, or whatever is facing us.”

(Image permission: Steve Brodie)