Lamey believes Bees can build on victories

Published 27 Sep 2012 17:30 0 Comments

ON paper it looked like a daunting start to the season.

Basingstoke Bison away followed by a home match against defending champions Guildford Flames, and then Sheffield Steeldogs and Bison again on the second weekend.

It was a four-match spell that appeared to offer little reward for Bracknell Bees, especially so early in the season.

But games are not won on paper, as Gareth Cox's men proved last weekend, battling their way to a first win in the Steel City since January 2010 and then avenging their opening day loss to Bison by beating them 3-2 at The Hive.

Both encounters were tough, hard-hitting affairs, with Ollie Bronnimann missing Sunday's clash after a hit against Sheffield and captain Rob Lamey also taking his fair share of punishment.

A cross-checking by Derek Campbell on Saturday put Lamey out of the game briefly and the following night a hit by Bison's Joe Greener forced him to sit out the last two periods.

But Bees' captain says it was all worth it to see his side pick up a couple of confidence-boosting wins.

"It is big for us because you had a look at the fixture list and it looked daunting, but we now have four points from the first four games and that gives us a lot of confidence that we can build on," he told the News.

"It was always going to take a few matches for us to settle as a team and for the lines to gel, but it was just a matter of time before we got points on the board.

"The whole team already looked more confident than the first weekend, the new faces at the back are settling in really well and have improved us a lot."

Key to both Bees' victories were superb defensive displays, with netminder Tom Annetts on top of his game and, in the words of Lamey, unlucky to miss out on at least one man-of-the-match award.

Those in front of Annetts also dug in deep over the weekend and Lamey hailed the importance of a strong backline.

"If you defend well then you give yourself a chance, we know we will not have problems scoring goals so the key is not to concede as many as last

year," he said.

"You are always going to come under pressure when you are ahead but we held firm and dug in and that was key, we dug out the results.

"Last year we might not have won those two games, but the way we defended was superb and we are putting everything into practice from [Gareth] Coxy and [Lukas] Smital.

"The win over Sheffield gave us confidence that we are good enough to do it, it was not pretty but we got the job done.

"I think we will get even better as the season goes on, we are not 100% gelled as a team yet."

Bees will be looking to make it three wins on the spin when they host Peterborough Phantoms on Saturday evening (6pm f/o) before a tough trip to Guildford Flames on Sunday (6pm f/o).

Lamey said: "We have to take this form to this weekend.

"It is good we have a home game first as hopefully we can win that and take our form to Guildford, which is always a difficult place to go."

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