Wightlink Raiders 7-4 Romford Raiders
Raider’s Cup Second Leg
Planet Ice, Ryde, Isle of Wight
18/02/2012
The Wightlink Raiders continued their dominance over the league leading Romford Raiders with another hard fought victory to lift their first piece of silverware of the season. This victory gave Wightlink the trophy 11-8 on aggregate having drawn the first leg 4-4 away in Essex. Both teams lined up for this one with key players absent. Dan Pye and Grant Rounding were missing for the home team who welcomed Coach Jeremy Cornish back into the line-up. Dan Pye not yet fully recovered from the concussion he had sustained in the previous match against Romford. Andrius Kaminskas was missing for the away team as was Billy Phillips who had picked up a 4 game suspension in Romford’s midweek clash with Chelmsford.
Wightlink started this game much the stronger and took the lead when a less than fierce blueline effort from Dominic Hopkins sailed past the Romford keeper Jackson. One that the away keeper, who was shaky all night, would want back. Wightlink continued in the ascendancy and Joe Rand doubled the lead with a shorthanded effort to complete the scoring for the period. This game never reached the same levels of bad temper and friction that the previous weekend’s encounter had, both teams concentrating on playing hockey. Ref Petr Popluhar had a quiet evening only awarding a total of 10 penalty minutes in the whole match.
Wightlink started the middle period positively and quickly extended their lead to three when Nathan Taylor scored. However AJ Smith pulled one back for the visitors who were starting to gain more and more of the play. Alex Murray, shorthanded, extended the lead back to three just before the halfway point and it seemed like the home team was cruising to victory. Romford to their credit had other ideas and up their game considerably. Wightlink knew they had a serious game on their hands as Romford pegged the lead back to one with scores from Grant Taylor and player coach Danny Marshall. Wightlink finished the period hanging onto the lead with Liam McAllister producing some fine saves to keep the home team’s lead intact up until the period break.
Whatever coach Jeremy Cornish said to his players in the second period break worked as Wightlink moved straight back in to the ascendancy at the start of the final period and two quick goals from Steve Gosset and Joe Rand put Wightlink back in control. Romford however are a team that do accept defeat easily and pulled a goal back through AJ Smith and continued to apply pressure on the Wightlink goal. Wightlink soaked up this pressure well and when Alex Murray scored his second and the Raiders seventh of the night with six and a half minutes left the game was over a contest.
This was another important marker laid down by the home team for the playoffs. Romford have now failed to beat Wightlink in the last three match-ups between the teams. This was the last scheduled meeting between these rivals for the season so this was the final chance to gain momentum over the Essex team for the playoff’s ahead. In that respect this was a job well done.
Romford did outshoot us in this game with Liam McAllister turning away an impressive 50 shots in the match whilst Jackson in the Romford net let 7 of 30 past him. The man of the match awards went to Grant Taylor for Romford and Alex Murray for Wightlink. All this played in front of the biggest crowd of the season.
Stats
4.53 Wightlink 1-0 Romford – Hopkins, Rand
11.40 Wightlink PEN – Murray 2 boarding
13.29 Wightlink 2-0 Romford – Rand SHG
23.07 Wightlink 3-0 Romford – Taylor, Strawson
25.33 Wightlink 3-1 Romford – AJ Smith, Turner, Buckman
28.24 Wightlink PEN – Cornish 2+2 roughing
28.24 Romford PEN – J Smith 2 roughing
28.52 Wightlink 4-1 Romford – Murray SHG
31.49 Wightlink 4-2 Romford – Taylor
35.40 Wightlink 4-3 Romford – Marshall, Huska
40.51 Wightlink 5-3 Romford – Gosset, Murray, Cornish
44.36 Wightlink 6-3 Romford – Rand, Pollard
45.09 Wightlink 6-4 Romford – AJ Smith, Marshall, Huska
53,22 Wightlink 7-4 Romford – Murray
54.13 Wightlink PEN – Murdy 2 slashing
Shots on goal
On Liam McAllister – 14/26/14 = 54
On Glen Jackson – 11/11/8 = 30
Man of match
Romford – Grant Taylor
Wightlink – Alex Murray
Officials
Petr Popluhar, Andy Cook, Stephen Thrower
Romford – Danny Marshall, AJ Smith, Matthew Turner, Grant Taylor, Tyrone Miller, JJ McGrath, Jason Buckman, Tom Davis, Julian Smith, Anthony Leone, Michael Gray, David Oliver, Glen Jackson, Juraj Huska
Wightlink – Steve Gannaway, Aidan Doughty, Damon Larter, Daniel Murdy, Jeremy Cornish, Steve Gosset, Kieran Annis, Arran Strawson, Richard Facey, Nathan Taylor, Niall Bound, Dominic Hopkins, Liam McAllister, Dan Weller Evans, Conor Pollard, Alex Murray, Joe Rand
Attendance – 562
