SWINDON Wildcats player-coach Aaron Nell is well aware that his own form on the ice can correlate to his team’s fortunes after notching a two-goal haul against Hull Pirates on Saturday night.

Nell and Polish import forward Tomasz Malasinski both struck twice as Swindon sunk the Pirates 8-4 at the Link Centre in their only National League fixture scheduled over the weekend.

Following their first game in December, the Cats sit second in the league table on 16 wins and six defeats from 22 fixtures so far.

However, half of those losses have come in Swindon’s last six matches amid a mini-blip in form.

Nell knows he must lead from the front for his team and hopes both he and star man Malasinski can continue to make telling contributions in the coming weeks.

“Myself and Tomasz scored a couple of goals each on Saturday night but we haven’t been scoring as much as we’d like in the last few weeks and that is probably where our results have suffered,” said Nell.

“It was good for us to get some goals on Saturday.

“I could talk about us both but what I will say is that Tomasz works harder than anyone. We need to keep working hard and try to get back at it.

“If myself and him can start to play like we did at the start of the season again, then the team is going to have success.

“We are going to work hard to do that.”

Swindon looked to be sailing to a dominant win over the Pirates at the Link Centre on Saturday as they led 7-1 after two periods.

Although Hull fought back in the final session to give the hosts a scare, Nell never felt the result was in any doubt.

“The reality is that Hull are a really good team,” said Nell.

“I think their forwards – their top six – are the best in the league. If you give them any time and space, they are going to score. We gave them that in the third period.

“Luckily, we were far enough ahead to be able to withstand that.”

With only one game on their schedule over the weekend, Nell says it was crucial to record victory – particularly given the fact that they were beaten at home by Basingstoke Bison in another one-game weekend the week prior.

“When you only have one game, it is always tough if you lose. It was very important for us to get back to winning ways,” said Nell.

“We challenged each other in the group to make sure we got a response – and we did.

“After Thursday night’s practice, I could see we were going to be good on Saturday night.

“We were exceptional and I am just very happy that we won.”