Telford Tigers player-coach Tom Watkins declared himself "immensely proud" of his team after their narrow 3-4 loss to last year's EPL champions Milton Keynes Lightning.

An evening of end-to-end hockey saw Tigers go ahead when Joe Henry rocketed the puck into the net at 11:18, although Lightning made it 2-1 by the end of the first and kept Tigers at bay throughout the middle session while they extended their lead.

Josh Bruce brought Tigers back into it at 42:24 but Lightning restored their two-goal cushion. A powerplay goal from Tomas Janak with ten minutes still to play gave Tigers hope of taking their first point from Milton Keynes this year but, as with last Saturday's game against Peterborough, they were unable to force the equaliser.

Despite the score, Watkins had only praise for the way his squad had performed, not least because they were without Nathan Salem, Ross Hanlon and Ashley Calvert.

"I am so proud of how we battled and dug in," said the coach. "They maybe outplayed us in the second, but we didn't give it up easily and I think we dominated in the third.

"We tightened the screw and gave ourselves some momentum. We had a couple of shots hit the pipes, so maybe just lacked that lucky bounce.
 
"It was all about hard work. Their hard work gave them the lead and our hard work, getting after all the pucks, got us back into the game.

"The guys are starting to grow - they are playing for each other. Luke Brittle has been awesome since Christmas, and McKenzie and McKinney played every other shift tonight as we were short.

"We've had three or four good weekends now and we know we might lose some games, like this one. But the important thing is how we respond to it. We bounced back from Saturday's loss to win on Sunday, so we know we can step it up for the next game."

Tigers' penultimate home game of the season is this Sunday, against Slough Jets, at 5.30pm.