Telford Tigers’ boss Tom Watkins was a happy man after watching his side twice come from behind to defeat reigning EPL champions Basingstoke Bison on Sunday.

The 4-2 victory over the Hampshire outfit at Telford Ice Rink was in stark contrast to Saturday, when they lost out 2-1 after a shoot-out at Swindon Wildcats.

Those results mean the Tigers are just a single point behind league leaders MK Lightning in the early standings.

He said: “Our effort just wasn’t good enough at Swindon against a team that wanted it more than us.

“We need to grind down teams by outworking them and we didn’t do that. Our powerplay was stinking and our best play came from the three-on-three at the end when we managed the puck.

“Other than that, we didn’t manage the puck well all night.

“Our energy levels against Basingstoke were very good – we talked about using our forecheck to create offense and we did that.

“We turned over a lot of pucks and to be fair, I thought the game should have been out of sight earlier than it was.

“But all credit to Basingstoke and their goaltending made it hard for us to get pucks through.

“Our energy and commitment in the early part of every period was certainly the difference tonight. All four of our goals came in the last two minutes of each period.

“I thought Corey McEwen in particular was great and he looked like a young Doug McEwen.

“He had a good game at Swindon as well, and his speed means he is very hard to play against.

“But he needs to do that every night and he’s got to turn up and play. I’m really pleased for Corey this weekend and though he was solid.”

(Image permission: Steve Brodie)