Streatham Redskins 4 Bracknell Hornets 3

It continued an encouraging start to the season for Redskins, who had tied 7-7 with old adversaries Invicta Dynamos the previous weekend.

“After conceding late on in the last game, it was important that we took two points in this game,” said Spours.

“The fact that Bracknell won the play-offs last season shows we have come a long way as a club in the past six months.”

With Slovakian star Peter Molnar unavailable because of family commitments in his own country, Spours put new signing Dan Marashi straight into action on the second line and handed Czech defenseman Lukas Zilak and forward Richard Hardy their first starts of the year.

The speed of Bracknell’s Greg Martyn and Grant Rounding caused the Redskins defence early problems before the visitors’ captain Dan Hughes was handed an illegal face visor call and given a 10-minute personal misconduct.

Then, against the run of play, Jack Tarzcycki broke out of the defensive zone and found Joe Johnston with a great pass, enabling the Redskins forward to skate hard down the right wing before firing past David Wride in the Bracknell goal from an acute angle.

That took the steam out of the Hornets and the Redskins began to assert pressure of their own courtesy of hard forechecking by Michael Ranby and Russ Stevens.

The game remained relatively balanced until a hopeful backhand shot to the net by Hardy bounced off Wrides leg pad onto an unlucky Hornets’ defensemans skates and into the net, with less than two minutes remaining in the period.

The second period started with a bang as the hard work from Martyn was finally rewarded when his defence splitting pass was converted by Alan Lack to get the Hornets on the score sheet. Seven minutes later the Redskins extended the lead to 3-1 much to the relief of their fans.

A long pass into the zone caused confusion in the Bracknell defence and goalie Wride slid out to attempt a poke check, only to have it intercepted by Tomas Valko who nudged the puck into the path of Russ Stevens who showed great composure to fire past a couple of diving Hornet’s defensemen into the goal.

Frustration was building amongst the Bracknell side and Danny House did his side no favours getting a ten minute misconduct for abuse of official. To their credit the Hornets kept working tirelessly and they got their reward soon after when Martyn latched onto a Tony Barclay pass to reduce the Redskins lead to one goal.

The goal had as much to do with the Redskins sloppy line change as it did the Hornets endeavour as the home side struggled with the long change and recent icing rule amendments throughout the period.

With only one goal in it, the third period started off tentatively with very few clear cut chances created.

With the Redskins desperately seeking a two goal cushion, the killer blow came with eight minutes gone of the period. A spell of pressure by the Redskins in the Hornets zone culminated in Stevens passing to Valko on the far left boards.

With seemingly no options, the Slovakian unleashed a fierce wrist shot at goal that looped into the far top corner of the goal past a startled Wride.

Three minutes later, the Hornets ensured that Redskins fans would have a nervous ending to the game. With Casimir Britton sitting a two minute penalty for roughing, the Hornets set up their powerplay unit and were soon celebrating as Luke Reynolds fired in from the blue line with Hughes providing the pass.

Far from the expected grandstand finish the game descended into a scrappy affair in the closing stages, however Will Sanderson in the Redskins goal had to be alert to keep out late efforts from Lack and Hughes.

The Redskins held out for an excellent 4-3 victory and remain unbeaten this season.