AT a time when Bracknell Bees are short of players, it perhaps wasn’t a wise move by Scott Spearing to become embroiled in an incident with an opponent – especially one he knows well, writes Dave Wright.

The game at Milton Keynes was over on Saturday, with the Bees on the wrong end of a 7-0 scoreline.

But as the full-time hooter sounded Spearing clashed with Lightning’s Frantisek Bakrlik, who was his Bees teammate until leaving The Hive for Milton Keynes last November.

Both players received 16 minutes in penalties for slashing and roughing, and that meant Spearing was forced to miss Sunday’s game with Manchester Phoenix.

They lost that 7-4 despite a spirited fight-back after they had conceded three goals inside the opening four minutes.

In addition to Spearing, one of their better players, Bracknell were missing injured duo Lewis Turner and Josh Martin, while others were involved with Bracknell Hornets.

With a full squad, the bottom-of-the-table side had a mountain to climb in both games; with a depleted roster it was virtually mission impossible, especially against a Lightning side who are making a strong bid for the title.

Bees had only 14 players available, four fewer than their hosts, who also had an ‘extra man’ in the shape of a large vocal crowd at the MK Arena.

With Spearing now sidelined, there was one fewer Bee on Sunday to take on the 16 from Manchester – and the game could not have started in a more disastrous fashion for them.

There were just 11 seconds on the clock when Martin Baraneck opened the scoring for Phoenix.

Bees were still reeling from that blow when they suffered two more in quick succession with Robin Kovar doubling his side’s lead on 3:09 and then adding another goal just 11 seconds later.

It looked as if the game was all over as a contest. Bees immediately took a time-out and they tightened up their defence.

They also started to test the visitors’ rearguard with Lukas Smital, Alex Barker and Vanya Antonov – who had been their man of the match at Milton Keynes – all having shots saved.

But their spirited response was cut short when Barker was banished to the sin-bin and Manchester took advantage of their numerical advantage to make it 4-0 with Kovar completing his hat-trick inside the opening 10 minutes.

The next 10 saw home netminder Alex Mettam make four saves and at the end of the period the Manchester fans were talking about seeing their side end up with double figures.

They had, however, overlooked one thing. A rousing team-talk in the home dressing room would see a different Bracknell side in the second period.

Bees returned to the ice looking an inspired and more determined outfit.

With Phoenix penalised for having too many players on the ice, it took Bracknell just 38 seconds of the second period to open their goal account through Antonov.

Less than four minutes later Barker had the puck in the net and Jan Bendik missed a chance before Carl Thompson added a third.

Bracknell were right back in the game; a testament of the character in the side.

But a tripping offence took Antonov off to the sin-bin and within 39 seconds they conceded a fifth goal when Mettam was beaten by Jacob Heron’s snap shot.

So Bees ended the middle period trailing 5-3 and their hopes of getting back into the match disappeared 36 seconds after the resumption when an unchallenged Stanislav Gron had time to notch a sixth for the northerners.

Smital pulled one back with a power-play goal on 49:55 but Manchester, third from bottom of the table, had the final say when Michal Satek made it 7-4 on 53:43.

Thompson, who hit the post late in the game, was Bracknell’s player of the match, with hat-trick man Kovar taking the award for the visitors.

Bees have just five matches remaining, with three of them this weekend.

They travel to Hull on Friday and Sheffield the following evening before hosting Peterborough on Sunday (6pm).

Thompson commented: “Hopefully Scott (Spearing) will be back next weekend. He is a great guy to have in the team and the more guys we have, the better it is.”