Raiders ‘must work harder’

London Raiders forward Jacob Ranson celebrates with Jakub Kostelansky (pic; John Scott) (Image: Archant)

Last weekend’s game against Invicta was rather disappointing after the way we play on the island, we just did not perform well as a team.

We got beat all round the rink by a quick Invicta team. They were faster and won the majority of the 50-50s, which was a shame as I thought we could have got something if we played our game.

Tempers boiled over during the Isle of Wight's last visit to Lee Valley in October, when they beat London Raiders 6-2 (pic; John Scott) (Image: Archant)

The powerplay was not working on the night, as Invicta’s quick forwards were picking off loose pucks and breaking free.

All in all, other than odd spells of the game, we needed to be better to beat teams like that, with firepower like that, as we sat back and let them play.

The bright side was Kostelansky scoring an absolute rocket of a goal on the night and for me personally to keep my scoring run going.

Now we must all show up to training and work harder to make sure we tie down that play-off place, as Oxford are still on our tails.

I still think we have a team capable of doing damage come the play-offs, providing we play our game and have a full squad, which we’ve lacked a lot this season.

It’s a shame we haven’t really had the whole team together for many games, as I think we’d have three strong lines, allowing us to roll the lines more freely.

Hopefully, this weekend we can almost have a full team to take it to the Isle of Wight again, exactly the way we did on the island.

That was one of our best team performances of the season, so we need to get back to that, but it will not be as easy with them having Cesky and Barker back in their line-up.

It’s a big game, though, as we need to show the league our results of recent times are not just a turn in luck and that we mean business.

At training this week we worked on some plays, which could be beneficial, but we did also learn our penalty kill is a lot stronger than our powerplay.

Going into the tail-end of the season, our last four games are massive for us, not only for that play-off spot, but to get some good form for once we get there.

Hopefully, the fans will be as loud as they have over the last few weeks. I can’t see where else they’d be anyway as there’s not a better place to be on Mother’s Day than Lee Valley!

*London Raiders face the Isle of Wight at Lee Valley Ice Centre on Sunday March 15 at 5.30pm.

Tickets are £10 adults, £5 concessions, under-16s and students (with valid student card).

A family ticket for two adults and two under-16s costs £30 and includes a programme and two chuck-a-puck entries.

Accompanied under-fives gain free entry.