HAWKS' title hopes took a major dent with another disappointing midweek away performance last night, Swindon quickly gaining revenge for their defeat at Blackburn last weekend.

Hawks expected a hostile reception, but Swindon produced a major trump card by fielding three new Finnish imports on the night.

After football's Bosman ruling, clubs are not now required to class European Community imports as foreigners and Wildcats sprung Petri Murtovaara and brothers Jari and Joni Virtanen on the unsuspecting Hawks just hours after the brothers arrived at Heathrow - and lost their kit!

Murtovaara was already in Britain and expected to sign for Durham, but the siblings were only able to ice 10 minutes into the game after their gear was located.

The Finns were cleared to play just two hours before face-off and Jari Virtanen marked his debut with a goal.

Despite the excitement over the new stars, Hawks actually took the lead against the run of play through Steve Chartrand, but Swindon levelled to square the first period 1-1. Horatio Schlinger was in impressive form in Hawks goal to keep the score level.

Wildcats went into a 2-1 lead which Malcolm Bell equalised, but Wayne Crawford netted with a slap-shot to make the second period score 2-1. The home side finished strongly and took the final third by 3 to 1, skipper John Haig netting for Hawks to pull it back to 5-3 before Hawks pulled Schlinger in a desperate last-ditch move and inevitably conceded an empty-net sixth. "We really lost the game because of our own mistakes.

"Our finishing, which is usually such a strength, wasn't up to the usual standard.

"We always knew the last few weeks were going to be very tough, but we didn't expect to lose three out of ten.

"But we can't dwell on it and it's certainly not time to press the panic button. We just have to beat Dumfries on Sunday and then if we beat Manchester, the whole thing opens up again.

"We've had a much harder start to the season than they have and we've got them at our place twice so there's no need for people to get too down just yet."

Scoresheet: Haig 1 + 1, Chartrand 1 + 0, Bell 1 + 0, Kummu 0 + 2, Sinkov 0 + 2.

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