Streatham Redskins slumped to two defeats this weekend as they lost out to Cardiff and Romford.
On Saturday the Redskins faced Cardiff in Brixton boosted by a decent crowd hoping to see the South London side go one better than the 3-3 tie the teams played out in the last fixture.
Streatham started strongly creating a host of chances as they tested Cardiff goalie Mike Brabon with a number of shots early on.
Against the run of play however the visitors took the lead as James Warman squeezed the puck past Will Sanderson in the Streatham goal from close range.
The following shift Streatham’s Evander Grinnell flattened Ross Wilkinson on the boards and Cardiff’s Alan Armour skated on to complain only to get a ten minute misconduct for his troubles.
It was two nil just minutes later as Ricky Deacon laid the puck off for Sean Scarbrough and the American skated hard down the right wing before firing the puck past Sanderson from the angle.
Streatham hit back two minutes later on the powerplay as Eddie Temple tipped in a Phil Manny shot from the point and then forty seconds later the home side were level. Jakub Klima skipped past two Devils players before passing the puck in front of goal to Chris Rasmussen who beat Brabon with a quick shot.
A lack of concentration from the resulting face off saw the puck bobble and drop for youngster Owen Griffiths who finished calmly past Sanderson to give the Devils a 3-2 lead at the end of the first period.
Streatham needed to come out hard at the start of the second but the despite numerous chances their forwards just couldn’t seem to trouble Brabon. With six minutes gone Deacon converted an Osman pass to make it 4-2.
Manny then set up Jamie McIlroy in the slot and he fired past Brabon to get Streatham back in the game but almost instantly Alan Armour gave Cardiff a two goal cushion again with a well worked goal.
Sadly for Cardiff, Armours jubilation saw him head towards the Streatham bench to offer some not so kind words and then when given his second misconduct of the game for his troubles, he was ejected by referee Ian Hayden before skating off arms aloft to the dressing room.
The pantomime scene finished, Cardiff shrugged off the loss of their team mate and scored another powerplay goal through Scarbrough to make it 6-3 with twenty minutes to play.
To their credit the Redskins came out firing in the third period as Cardiff tired but still it took nine minutes for the home side to get their goal as Jakub Klima fired a sublime first time slapshot in to the top corner of Brabon’s net from a Joe Johnston pass.
The frailties on the counter attack were shown again as Deacon got his second of the night as the Redskins hopes of a comeback were shattered with two minutes to go.
In the final shift of the game Dave Carr made a cross ice pass to Stevie Balmer who steadied himself and fired into the top of the net to reduce the defeat to 7-5.
On Sunday Streatham travelled to reigning league champions Romford Raiders hoping to salvage something from the weekend.
Sadly for the small band of Streatham fans that had made the trip to Rom Valley Way it turned out to be a long evening as the Redskins were thrashed 14-3 by the currently unbeaten Raiders.
Joe Allen, Joe Johnston and Eddie Temple were on target for the Redskins but Allen was ruled out with injury after the first period and Liam Rasmussen also showered early due to a knee complaint.
All in all a weekend to forget for those of a Streatham persuasion.
