HIS SIDE may have notched up a healthy 5-1 win at the Sheffield Steeldogs tonight but Swindon Wildcats head coach Ryan Aldridge thought that his team lacked desire on the ice.

Swindon took home maximum points from their trip to South Yorkshire but Aldridge thought that his team took too long to take control at the iceSheffield arena and didn’t put their bodies on the line.

The Wildcats chief doesn’t want Saturday night’s scoreline to paper over the cracks and intends to up the intensity in training to ensure his players are ready to give their all in future clashes.

“I think we’re going to start working hard in the week in practice and off-ice and for me, it’s a bit of desire. The guys have got to have desire every night,” said Aldridge.

“In the Telford games that we’ve won, the boys have played with desire but we’ve they’ve got to play with that every night and for me, it’s too in and out.

“For me, it’s a little things like taking the body and tonight we didn’t take the body, especially in the first two periods. We talked about not making it into a game of shinny (street hockey) and that’s exactly what we did.

“The boys have got to start being accountable and it’s not an easy ride.

“The first two periods were bland and slow and we obviously had a few words in the period break and got a response, but to come into this building and wait for the final period isn’t good enough.

“We’ve got to play for 60 minutes and we’ve got to play harder and be better than we were tonight, especially in the first period – and even in the third period, I don’t think we played our best.

“(Sheffield) didn’t look exactly up for the game tonight. I thought they looked flat and we did too.

“I said to Steve (Nell), watching them warm up, that it looked like both teams didn’t want to be here.

“But the boys have got to work hard, especially at this point of the season with the position we’re in – the guys should be fighting for their jobs every night and it seems to be easy for them at the moment.

“We have to be better. Against a team like that - you look at our line-up and their line-up - we shouldn’t be waiting until the last period to win the whole game.”