The Wightlink Raiders unbeaten run continued at the weekend with two comfortable wins in two potentially tricky looking games.
The Raiders followed up Saturday’s 8-1 win over Oxford with the 8-2 thrashing of reigning play off champions Bracknell Hornets in Berkshire last night.
The two wins keep the Island team six points clear at the top and perfectly set up Sunday’s crunch match in Gillingham to take on Invicta Dynamos.
The Dynamos are second in the league table with three games in hand and were the last team to beat the Raiders back in early November.
Cornish’s men on form
On Saturday it was another stunning first period performance from Jeremy Cornish’s men as they raced into a 4-0 lead thanks to goals from Jason Gorrie, Dom Hopkins, Robbie Brown and a brilliant strike from Nathan Taylor.
Oxford continued to battle hard but could make little leeway on a solid Raiders defence and the home side ran out easy 8-1 winners with Gorrie and Brown completing a brace each and Brad Watchorn and Jeremy Cornish also adding a goal each. Oxford’s consolation came courtesy of former Raiders player coach Gareth Endicott.
Rampant Raiders
Sunday’s game in Bracknell also saw a rampant Raiders show their title credentials with another easy win. Coach Cornish led the way with two first period goals with Robbie Brown bringing his weekend haul to 4 and goals from Watchorn, Gorrie, captain Damon Larter and Steve Gosset completing the rout.
So the Raiders have hit the 50 point mark and with nine games left are still the slight favourites to lift the ENL championship. This Sunday’s game away to Invicta Dynamos will go a long way to deciding the destination of the title and a big Island contingent are expected to travel to Kent for the match.
Next game
Next home game for the Raiders is a week on Saturday (19th) when they take on Bristol Pitbulls.
Image: © Used with the kind permission of Nicky Craft
