Steel City Scorpions U18 v Manchester Phoenix U18

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Another depleted squad, 1 missing with game ban, 2 more away with ENL and 1 coming back from injury, but, this was a game against a struggling side at the bottom of the league.

The home side started better forcing a couple of early saves by Paddy before Phoenix got into their stride.

Phoenix dominated possession for the next 10 minutes, camped out in the opposition zone, a mixture of good saves by the Steel City netminder, some unfortunate bounces of the puck and crosses not met, meant that we had failed to capitalise on our good work, particularly with fine passing moves with no end product.

Phoenix`s first penalty after 13.53 started to turn the game around and the home side grew with confidence, how costly would our wasteful domination prove to be?

The answer came after 18.46 as the home side took the lead, poor defensive work, we had chances to clear but didn’t take them and suddenly we trailed 0-1, this is getting a familiar story at the moment.

The period ended with another Phoenix penalty that we carried through to the start of the 2nd period, penalties eventually take their toll later in the game.

The home side came out the blocks again and forced a couple of saves.

Phoenix started to get a foothold again and was rewarded after 24.45 with a fabulous short-handed solo effort by Luke Smith for an equalising goal.

Phoenix then dominated possession again for the next 6 minutes forcing save after save, again the puck didn’t want to fall to one of our players in a clear scoring position and chances were again not taken!!

Phoenix penalties after 33.58, 35.31 led to a 3 v 5 then 4 v 5, it was as the latter penalty was coming to an end that the home side scored again to make it 1-2 after 36.49 another poor goal conceded.

Phoenix finished the period in domination with more shots saved, but nothing to show from it, a further penalty again at the end of the period means we start period 3 a man down yet again.

The 3rd period started with a Phoenix breakaway 1 on 1 with the home netminder, not scored, this was an important time in the game if we had levelled.

Disaster after 42.57 a giveaway behind our own net led to the home side scoring again for 1-3 and a major uphill task followed.

Phoenix pushed forward in search of a goal but again was thwarted by good netminding and wasteful shooting, further penalties again hampered any fightback as chasing the game with a man down doesn’t pay dividends.

In a final attempt to force a goal our netminder was pulled on 58.43 to try and give us a powerplay opportunity, the home side taking advantage of an empty net after 59.33 for the final goal 1-4.

To be fair, the home side which were languishing at the bottom of the league, played well, they had a very good netminder, but, we had a lot of very good possession in scoring positions, but failed to capitalise throughout the game and Phoenix end up on the wrong end of an embarrassing scoreline.

We are now in a run of 1 win and 5 defeats in the last 6 games with a tough start to the New Year ahead of us.

The man of the match went to Josh Sweet

The shots were Steel City ?? Phoenix ??

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