Wightlink Raiders 3 Blackburn Hawks 7; Blackburn Hawks 19 Oxford FOxblades 2

SO, who's backing against Blackburn Hawks for the title now?

To go away to your main rivals and triumph is one thing. To then return 24 hours later and treat your home fans to 19 goals - well, steady, this is the stuff of dreams.

Little wonder that within the Hawks camp there is an increasing feeling of this being THE year.

Saturday's win at the tiny rink on the Isle of Wight where only one previous visiting side had tasted success was magnificent. Hawks took all three periods with player-coach Bobby Haig leading from the front - literally!

Haig emerged top scorer with two goals as Hawks took the Raiders by surprise with a performance oozing style and determination.

The euphoria - not to mention the hectic travel timetable - was sure to take a toll - but you would never have guessed judging from the all-action display against the struggling Foxblades at the Arena last night.

Hawks ran in seven goals in the first period and repeated the feat in the third with a total of 64 shots crashing in on the Blades netminder.

Lamonte Polet again dominated the scoring with four while there were hat-tricks for a hat-trick of his colleagues, Simon Mills, Brian Smith and, of course, Andrew Dickson.

Saturday details - Period scores: 1-3, 1-2, 1-2.

Scoresheet: Chad Brandimore 1+2, Kevin Doherty 0+1, Tim Dempsey 0+1, Danny Mackriel 1+0, Bobby Haig 2+0, James Beale 1+0, Billy Price 1+0, Andrew Dickson 1+2.

Sunday details - Period scores: 7-1, 5-1, 7-0.

Scoresheet: Gordon Whyte 0+1, Chad Brandimore 1+3, Matt Jones 0+4, Kevin Doherty 2+2, Tim Dempsey 0+2, Simon Mills 3+1, Danny Mackriel 0+1, Bobby Haig 1+0, James Beale 1+2, Billy Price 1+0, Brian Smith 3+2, Andrew Dickson 3+7, Lamonte Polet 4+4.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.