Birrell looks ahead to Dynamos re-match

CHELMSFORD, UK – Coming off the back of a narrow 3-4 home defeat to Kent rivals Invicta Dynamos, ENL1 side Chelmsford Chieftains head coach Dean Birrell is relishing the chance to take on the Dynamos again in such a short space of time. “I asked the boys to give 110% and they did. Ultimately it came down to one bad deflection and a couple of goals given away which I wasn’t happy with it, but overall we battled back into the game and stayed with them throughout the game and they gave it their all”. One downside from the game though was the one match ban picked up by import defenceman Rudi Dzurko, joining netminder Andy Moffat in suspension. “We are going to try and appeal the match penalty, but we’ll have to wait and see what goes into the referee’s report first and what the league do about it. As we know from the situation with Andy Moffat, things can really turn bad in a week. Rudi admits he did pull Ryan Giles’s hair as he was going to grab his shirt. It was a heat of the moment thing, not intentional and from what I’ve heard from the Dynamos camp none of those boys are upset about it. I am hopeful, at worst, that it is left at just the one game. Ideally we’d like that reduced, but we’ll wait and see what the league say. “Losing Moffat in goal was a blow, but I am very pleased to see Ben

Clements step up the way he did. Ben made some top saves in the game and really kept us in it. It could have been a different story altogether if we didn’t have such a reliable goalie on our books such as Ben. I think he played some great hockey and went some way to giving the boys the confidence to battle back into the game”. Birrell continued “I was happy to see Rudi stand up for his team-mates, as did Blaho Novak. They are young men and they get a bit fired up at times, but it’s a learning curve for them still, particularly Novak. I am pleased that the boys stood together. The toughness is there, but that’s not really our gameplan. We’re here to play hockey first and foremost”. This Sunday see’s the Chieftains go up against Invicta again, at the Ice Bowl in Kent. Birrell spoke on this too “The pressure is most certainly on Invicta and not us. I am firmly of the belief that this past game and the one coming up will not be title determining, but it will go some way to seeing where we match up with the Dynamos and what areas we need to improve on. There is still a lot of hockey to played this season”. Within the Chieftains squad there are a couple of young players who don’t see a lot of ice time, Tom Foskett and Alex Staples. Foskett plays down to division 2 with the Warriors on a few occasions, while Staples sits and learns a lot while being on the bench surrounded by the senior players. Birrell was asked about why those two were not used more often“When I started off as a player, I spent a season purely sitting on the bench developing by listening and watching and picking up whatever I could from the more experienced guys. Those two are still young lads and still developing. They are working hard in training to improve and are very committed to the team. It’s hard to put them into game situations in case they make mistakes and it knocks their confidence. Their time will come and I have every confidence in them to be a part of the Chieftains in the long term. They are very professional in the way they are handling this season and that’s what makes the good players better. You can have all the talent in the World, but if you have the wrong attitude then you will never play to your full potential. These two lads have both talent and the right attitude and I look forward to coaching them into more and more senior hockey in the years to come”. Face off at the Gillingham Ice Bowl is 5:15 on Sunday night. Comment on this story Pete.Lewis@Prohockeynews.com