HOW we were so poor in the first period and so good after that at Solway on Saturday I haven’t got a clue.

I like to think we lulled them into a false sense of security.

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We just gave away three sloppy goals and with the quality of shooters they’ve got in their team, if you give them a chance they will score.

It was probably a blessing in disguise as sometimes that’s just what you need to give you a kick up the backside, and we certainly got that at the first break. We had quite a stern telling off, but we responded with three goals in four minutes in the second period through Dan MacKriel and two for Jared Owen.

From there on we were very much the better team, all the more impressive given that we had a scare on Thursday when netminder Daniel Brittle was ruled out for three or four weeks with a torn groin muscle.

Stuart Ashton left us at the end of last season to join Widnes Wild but we managed to get him back on the morning of the game. He made some massive saves at big times in the game when it could have turned.

As a group we were more disciplined this weekend, but Solway scored a power play goal for their fourth.

I equalised, though, and scored the fifth, and Jordan Bannon finished the game off and really emphasise the character in the team.

That’s a game we might have lost this time 12 months ago, but every year we keep getting better and this year don’t seem to ever give up.

We’ve always believed in ourselves but things are starting to turn our way now and we’re getting results that we haven’t had previously.

I was confident against Billingham in the cup on Sunday, for example, but never imagined we would beat them 10-2, especially after a hockey day that started with a 1pm set-off on Saturday and 1.30am return home on Sunday after a 7.30pm face-off.

It is a long day but we obviously still had plenty left in the tank for the Sunday game.

It was quite a close game to begin with and we ended the first period 3-1 up, but we blew them away in the second period, leading 9-1 at the end, and finished 10-2 overall with the goals coming from Luke Brittle, with a hat-trick, while there were two each for Dan MacKriel and Adam Brittle and one each for Jared, Jordan and Aaron Davies.

We’ve got a blank weekend to recover now.