Chieftains accept draw, but more was on the cards

CHELMSFORD, UK – The game started off much the same way it did at the Riverside a week earlier with the Dynamos having an early shot on Ben Clements, however the Chieftains were the first to create a real scoring chance early on when a 2on0 breakaway with Ross Brears and the hard-working Danny Hammond were denied by Joe White in the Dynamos net. Former Chieftains fan favourite Mark Williams found himself in penalty trouble on 5:45 when a slash at Jerry Pavlus earned him a 2minute minor, plus a 10minute misconduct penalty for having a go at referee Ian Hayden after repeatedly being told to calm down. He joined Ryan Giles, last week beaten in a fight by suspended Rudi Dzurko, in the penalty box and on the resulting 5 on 3 power play the Chieftains found the net through former Invicta defenceman Adam Copland, who drove the puck home from the blueline with a powerful slapshot. Minutes later and the Chelmsford fans were dancing in the aisles as a well worked goal from a combination of BT Williams, Rich Whiting and Darren Brown allowed Brown to fire home with relative ease to make the score 0-2.

The Chieftains had hoped to go into the first break 2 goals to the good, however Invicta import Nolan Boike put pay to that and slotted the puck past Clements at the near post. Just into the second period and it was almost 1-3 but White made a save from the tireless Brears. A few minutes later and a mistake from Sean Easton in clearing the puck almost allowed the Dynamos to tie the game up, but Ben Clements made a great poke check to deny the onrushing Dynamos. Tempers began to heat up a few minutes later when a save by White was spilled and a scrum of players ensued after some nasty pushes and punches were thrown behind the net. Only the instigator of the ensuing scrum, “terrier like” Tom Foskett, took any penalties though. Early in the third period and the Chieftains thought they had a third, only to be disallowed for hitting White’s helmet as the puck went in and Hayden said “no goal”. The Invicta fans were awoken at 47:26 when Peter Vaisenan joined his fellow import Boike on the score sheet with another near post goal to tie the game at 2-2. Andrews and Boike teamed up to almost win the game but as ever Clements was strong in the Chieftains net and pulled off another game-saving save. BT Williams, who was impressive throughout, Whiting and Brown combined again late on but White was equal to it once more. At the other end with around 30 seconds to go, it almost became 3-2, but Clements showed why he deserved his man of the match award by pulling off another great save. After the game, Chieftains coach Dean Birrell said “I’m very pleased tonight to have got the draw from here. Not many sides this year will get anything from this rink, so to be the first is an excellent feeling. I feel we should have got more from the game, as we were all over them at times, but our shooting was not that great tonight so we will be working on that. What was interesting was seeing who scored the Invicta goals and who scored our goals and who our main players were. It was our British and local players who were the main danger tonight, but on the other side it was only their imports who looked really dangerous, with the exception of the odd attack”. “Happy with the result, but we could have had more and we’ll be looking to rectify that next week when we have two tough games away at both Bracknell and Streatham”. Tom Foskett said “The reason I started to give Ryan Giles some cross-checks was because I wanted to stand up for my team-mates and send a message that we weren’t intimidated by them. BT needed some help physically as they were playing the numbers game on him and I was there for him, as I am for all my team”. Contact the author Pete.Lewis@Prohockeynews.com