News Report

Coaches thoughts....

Coach Cliff gives his thoughts on our superb cup final weekend

• admin
• 26 February 2025

Hi Chieftains Fans,
 
I hope you are all well and have recovered from the weekend, I’m sure there are some sore throats and croaky voices amongst you with the noise that was generated across the 2 legs.
 
I am really proud of all the boys for the effort they put in over the weekend which ultimately saw them crowned Britton Cup Champions.  The 2 games had a little bit of everything and I am sure everyone was fully entertained whether they were present on Saturday, Sunday or both nights.  There were moments both nights that things weren’t going our way, but that is exactly what you would expect from any final, we came out of Solent on Saturday with a 3 goal lead which I would have happily taken if it was on offer before the game started and we played a mature and patient game in a difficult building to get to that point, Solent did an excellent job for 2 periods to keep us scoreless but we knew if we stuck to our game we would get there in the end and we came back home with a small buffer.  We knew the final was far from over on Sunday and there would most definitely be a reaction which came early, Solent went 2-0 up on the night and within 1 on aggregate and we really hadn’t clicked into gear yet, we had a great spell in the second period where we got our noses back in front, and then the Devils pegged us back again on the night to go into the 3rd period 1 goal up on the night, 2 behind on aggregate, at this point we knew all we had to do was manage the 3rd period and do the little things right and if we did those things away from the puck we would get our chances which we did and we took a couple to end up with a 9-5 win on aggregate.
 
Winning trophies is hard, it is meant to be, there’s no participation medals handed out at this level of sport you either find a way or you go home with nothing, the boys dug in and found a way.  The Devils were solid opponents who gave us some real problems across the weekend and the never went away right up to the final face off in our zone with seconds left to play, absolute respect must go to them for the part they played over the weekend, I am sure we will run into them in a big game again at some point.
 
Thanks so much to you all, our fanbase is literally second to none at this level of hockey and the atmospheres you guys created over the weekend were unbelievable, it doesn’t go unnoticed.
 
We will be back in action this weekend with 2 home games as we take on Cardiff and then Invicta, it’s now important for us to really dig in and find our groove heading into the playoffs which will be here before we know it.
 
Cheers all,
 
Cliff.