DOUG Sheppard admitted his Bracknell Bees side were not at their best when losing 2-1 in overtime to Swindon Wildcats at The Hive on Sunday, writes Dave Wright.

In a game where they were outshot by a margin of 34-19, Roman Malinik grabbed a late goal to cancel out Edgars Bebris' effort, only for Aaron Nell to win it for Wildcats 53 seconds into sudden death.

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Afterwards, disappointed head coach Sheppard said he had "mixed feelings", explaining: "I’m happy we scored as late as we did, so pleased to get a point, but we could have had more. "

He added: "We played ok, but it wasn’t our best game. Maybe if we’d played our best game we’d have given ourselves the best chance over 60 minutes to get full points.”

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It was, however, a much-improved performance compared to the one at Swindon a week earlier when they crashed 5-0.

Whilst again struggling to find the net, they looked sounder in defence with netminder Adam Goss producing a man-of-the-match performance for the second home game in succession, although it has to be admitted that Swindon's finishing was, like their hosts, not at its sharpest.

The TSI World-sponsored Bees also played with more discipline than they had previously.

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There was a welcome return to the side for Vanya Antonov, who is now playing primarily for Streatham, but they were missing defender Brendan Baird, who was starting a four-match ban following an incident which occurred late in the previous week's win over Milton Keynes Lightning.

Goss was the busier of the two netminders and there was a spell in the middle period when his goal came under constant pressure, during which Swindon's Tomasz Malasinksi hit the foot of the post and Chris Jones went almost as close shortly afterwards.

Nell then broke clean through for a one-on-one with Goss, but he failed to take his chance.

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However, Wildcats eventually found their way past the outstanding goalie in the fourth minute of the third period, with the unchallenged Edgars Bebris firing into the bottom left-hand corner of the net.

Setting up a thrilling finish, Bees responded positively to going behind and were rewarded by the equaliser from Malinik with just under two minutes left on the clock, with Josh Smith and Ed Knaggs providing the assists.

Overtime started with three against three, but after just 20 seconds Robin Kovar was sent to the sin-bin for a tripping offence to leave Swindon with an extra man and they needed a further 33 seconds to snatch the winner through Nell.

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