RUPERT Quiney’s home debut for Bracknell Bees lasted less than 25 minutes on Sunday.

The 26-year-old defenceman, who joined the club last week from Guildford Flames, damaged his shoulder during Bees’ 5-2 defeat by Basingstoke Bison.

“It would be unfortunate if he is out for a long time,” said player-coach Lukas Smital, who described Quiney as a “very positive guy.”

Quiney has won league and cup honours with Guildford and Telford Tigers and was described as an “awesome signing” by Bees director Matt Fettell.

The 6ft 4in Quiney certainly added a physical presence to the Bees’ defence, both in the 4-0 defeat at Sheffield and then against Bison 24 hours later.

Bracknell, seeking their third win of the season at Sheffield, were left bitterly disappointed by the result.

They need to overhaul the Steeldogs to move above the play-off line, but now find themselves with an eight-point deficit to make up.

The 4-0 scoreline was not reflected by the match statistics, as Bees out-shot their hosts by a whopping 47-29 margin.

Yet, that also echoes Bracknell’s ongoing problem of not being able to turn their scoring opportunities into goals.

They found themselves 2-0 down inside the opening nine minutes, but it wasn’t until the last minute of the third period when Sheffield extended their advantage with the fourth goal coming in the 53rd minute.

At the time of the last goal, both sides had seen a player thrown out of the game following a fight between Cameron Brownly and Harvey Stead.

As a result, Stead was also banned for the game with Basingstoke, which added to Bees’ problems, as they were also missing injured trio Matt Foord, who had hurt his back at Sheffield, Scott Spearing and Josh Smith.

So the arrival of Quiney was most welcome, although for the second night running his side were soon trailing.

Dan Scott took just 61 seconds to open Bison’s account and a little over three minutes later Dan Davies delivered a second blow to the Bees.

It’s not often that Bracknell pull back a two-goal deficit, yet they did on this occasion, so at at least demonstrating there was some fight and character in the camp.

Alex Barker, with a first-time shot, turned in a right-wing cross from Smital on 11:55.

And Barker, along with Smital, then set up the equaliser for Shaun Thompson on 22:44 the ex-Bison following up after two super blocks by net-minder Tomas Hiadlovsky Stand-in skipper Thompson was also not far away from adding to his tally, Soon afterwards, Bees lost the services of the unfortunate Quiney, leaving them light at the back.

They came under heavy pressure, with net-minder Alex Mettam pulling off save after save. He held out until 35:34, but then Derek Roehl seized onto a rebound to put Bison back in front.

Matt Towalski (38.20) and Ciaran Long (39.57) made it 5-2 by the end of the second period, during which the visitors produced 25 shots compared to just five from Bracknell.

If it wasn’t hard enough for the over-worked Bees, they didn’t help their cause by a lack of discipline which saw three players sitting together in the sin-bin.

Luka Basic, who was man of the match in Sheffield, received a two plus two penalty for roughing, and was quickly followed by David Gaborcik for holding and then Josh Tetlow for cross-checking.

Bees at least managed to keep Bison at bay before returning to full strength – but not for long.

James Galazzi and Dan Scott removed their helmets to raise their fists in the centre of the rink, but within seconds the home player was lying on the ice and both players were sent for an early shower with 2+2+10 penalties.

In all, Bracknell finished with a total of 34 penalty minutes and Basingstoke 26.

It looked as if Bison had added a sixth goal in the last second of the game, but referee Stefan Hogarth ruled it out, saying the game had already ended.

Not surprisingly, Mettam was voted Bees’ man of the match.

The net-minder could face another busy night this Saturday (6pm faceoff) when the visitors are league leaders Telford Tigers, who have bagged 155 goals from their 35 matches. Bees have managed just 80.

  • BEES forward Rio Grinell-Parke has been named in the Great Britain Under 18s squad for the World Championship tournament (Division 2A) in Korea on April 1-8.