Cardiff Rage..........................2

Chelmsford Chieftains.............4

(English Premier League)

Chelmsford Chieftains stuttered to a far from convincing victory over bottom club Cardiff Rage on Saturday.

Chieftains were without captain Karl Rogers and also Andy Hannah, Tari Suwari and Dan Oliver against a side whose average age was less than 20 years-old and made Chieftains struggle right from the outset.

Forced to reshuffle their pack, Chieftains survived an early scare with a goal-saving save from goalie Simon Smith before creating their first chance, narrowly missed by Darren Cotton.

The early indications were that the Cardiff netminder Daniel Wood would be difficult to beat and so it proved, the youngster making a string of fine saves.

New boy Tighe Ransom's first gamesheet entry was to pick up a two-minute penalty for cross-checking, conceding a power play which Chieftains did well to survive.

It took Chieftains until 6.35 to open their account when, following a scramble in the Cardiff goalmouth, Darren Cotton steered home the loose puck.

Chieftains dominated the remainder of the period but were unable to beat goalie Wood.

After a phase of early Chieftains' domination in the second period, Chieftains conceded a goal to a Cardiff power-play with Pete Morley penalised for interferrence.

It fell to the lively Phil Hill who scored well on 26.02. Chieftains were to dominate the second period and spent most of it with an extra man with Cardiff racking up silly penalties.

However they were unable to capitalise and even missed an open net with the goalie sprawled helplessly on the floor. The miss summed up Chieftains' night.

The third period was much the same as the first two had been, with Chieftains dominating the play and goalie Wood standing firm.

At 46.00, after a scramble in the Rage goalmouth, a roughing incident saw no less than six players being 'binned' and Chieftains' Carl Greenhous being given a game ban for being the 'third man in' for trying to break the incident up.

It was a grave injustice as the Cardiff player who launched the initial attack on Chieftains' Duane Ward was given only two minutes.

Chieftains managed to get themselves in front on 48.51 when Craig Britton's blue liner sailed past Wood, the assist going to Jon Cotton. Rage were not finished and after Ransom was penalised for elbows they levelled through their captain Wesley Spencer on 56.44.

It looked as if Chieftains would surrender a valuable point until arguably their best move of the night saw them edge back in front.

A good passing movement involving Duane Ward and Craig Metcalf saw Jon Cotton follow in to slam home at 58.16.

After time-outs called by both teams, Rage 'pulled' their goalie in favour of the extra skater, but a loose puck fell to Billy Price who scored in the empty net at 59.33, a shot from well inside the Chieftains' defensive zone, assists being credited to Jake French and Jon Cotton.

Man-of-the-match for Chieftains went to the popular Craig Britton, while goalie Daniel Wood, who faced some 56 shots, justifiably won the award for Rage.

Of Chieftains' new imports, Duane Ward took the eye and will surely do very well once Andy Hannah and Karl Rogers return to share his line.

Tighe Ransom rarely got in the game and will obviously take a little time to settle to the style of play in the UK.

Good news for Chieftains were the performances of their three 'junior' players, Andy Clements, Richard Gunn and Shaun Wallis.

All showed that they can perform well at this level and the two forwards, Wallis and Clements, went close to scoring.

In Richard Gunn, Chelmsford have developed a young defender of style and confidence who will perform very well at this level and even at the ripe old age of 15 he had a fine first outing for Chieftains.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.