Josh Jones (#73) was the MVP for Deeside Ducks against Bradford (Photo by Paul Breeze)
5th October 2024 – Laidler
Division: Deeside Ducks 3 – Bradford Bulldogs 4
The Deeside Ducks narrowly lost out in a highly entertaining and closely fought 3-4 defeat to the Bradford Bulldogs at Deeside Leisure Centre on Saturday.
The game started well for Deeside as Michael Speare fired them into the lead after just 36 seconds but Bradford struck back and were level 4 minutes later. Deeside edged ahead once again on 15 minutes with a goal from Josh Jones but the visitors again had an answer and equalised just 24 seconds later to leave the score standing at 2-2 at the first period break.
The second period was very close - with chances for both teams - but produced no goals, and the score remained at a finely balanced 2-2 with just 20 minutes left to play.
The Bulldogs were fastest out of the traps for the third period and finally got their snouts in front with a goal 31 seconds in.
Despite having outshot the visitors by some margin over the course of the game, the Ducks were finding it difficult to break down the stubborn Bradford defence – but they got a helping hand with just over 6 minutes left to play.
A Bulldogs player was banished from the ice for a dangerous cross check, for which he was handed a 5 plus game penalty by the match officials. This meant that the Ducks would have a man advantage for pretty much the rest of the third period.
Charlie Spridgeon pulled Deeside back level with a powerplay goal two minutes later and the Ducks pushed forward to try and force a late winner. Unfortunately, they got caught out at the back and Bradford fired in a shorthanded goal to retake the lead with just 3 minutes left to play.
Deeside were unable to bounce back from this – even with their continued man advantage - and they even withdrew their netminder in favour of an extra attacker for the last 30 seconds, but the game finished 3-4 to Bradford.
The Ducks are without a game this weekend and then have three away trips in a row – away to Sheffield on 20th October, Telford on 26th October and Bradford on 3rd November – before their next home match, which will be against Telford Tigers on Sunday 17th November at Deeside Leisure Centre.
Coach’s Comments
After the game, Ducks Head Coach Gary
Shaw said:
The team went into the game open minded as both clubs are building, with Bradford a little ahead of us because they have had a more stable junior setup.
With a bit more confidence after the first win of the season, the team started well bringing some of the work we had done in training. We moved the puck well and broke out of our own defensive zone easily, but our offensive play still needs work gaining the zone to make different decisions and gain better possession.
Once we got into the zone, we made some good progress and we went ahead - only for Bradford to come back and take advantage of our indecision in the defensive zone.
So, the conversation between the periods was to make the right decisions and play the puck low in the zone and take the opportunity to shoot in good areas.
The game was back and forth with both netminders making some good saves. We applied some good pressure but came up empty handed for most of our efforts.
We focused on telling the team to be patient and do the right things, at the start of the period Bradford had stepped up their game and for the first five minutes we struggled to get into our game.
The game was still to and fro and we scored to equalise as the game progressed it was down to who would make the fewer mistakes that would take the spoils. So Bradford took the lead with us making a mistake on the half way line, they chipped the puck out and then went on to score.
Then Bradford took a five minute penalty in the last six minutes of the game and we had a lot of chances but shot the puck high and wide, with three minutes of the game left we scored the equaliser, still having the advantage of the penalty we pushed for the winner. But, as before we lost the puck on half way and they went on to score the winning goal.
After the final whistle, we spoke about the mistakes that had lost us the game – and also about shot variety, because we had shot the puck high a lot and quite a lot missed the net and ended up with an easy exit from the zone for the opponents.
Although we had lost right and fair, we had a lot of positives to take out of the game, and as a coaching team have again identified where we need to work on to improve their game and hopefully make us stronger and harder to beat.
As we move on, the players can hold their heads up high as they are getting better with each game and their bond with each other is growing."
You can follow the progress of the new Deeside Ducks team as they continue on their debut season in the NIHL Laidler Division on their Facebook page HERE