WE played Manchester Phoenix again at the weekend, this time at home, and it was a tough game as we lost 8-0.

We only had four defenders on the day with a couple of guys unable to play.

We knew before that it was going to be a tough evening and that didn’t help. It was hard from the outset but we gave it our all, which is all we could ask for really.

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We said after the game that we were frustrated not to get on the board ourselves.

We had some chances but we just couldn’t take them on the night.

That’s the big difference for me when you play an EPL side, when they have opportunities they usually take them, they are a better team than us, there’s no shying away from that, but they take their chances and they’ve got a couple of really good shooters.

With only having four defenders it was a tough night, we were all struggling at the end, the lungs were burning for sure. They train three of four times a week, they’ve got professional players, so they are going to have a fitness advantage.

I’ve said before that I enjoy playing in these games, even if they are hard work.

The tempo is very fast compared to games in our league but it does us some good, every time we have played an EPL side we have come back and played well in our league.

Although we usually get beat convincingly I don’t think it affects the confidence.

Nobody is expecting us to get results against EPL sides, we know ourselves that they are going to be hard games, we are coming up against players on pretty big wages, but you can improve your own game by playing in them.

We’ve got a couple of weeks off now, which is a shame really.

As a team we don’t really like having a break, a lot of ice hockey is about momentum and we’ve got that at the moment, so it would nice to keep playing.

But it’s a chance to get a few players back to full fitness, which will definitely help. We will work hard in training and get ready for Solway at home on November 23.