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Four-goal Payette spearheads Phoenix romp

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Manchester Phoenix 12 - 3 Romford Raiders

Manchester Phoenix completed a four-point weekend by following up Saturdays' fine win in Guildford with a demolition job on the hapless Romford Raiders with Andre Payette leading the way with a four-goal Man of the Match performance.

Phoenix coach Tony Hand noted, "We wanted to get the win tonight and with no disrespect to Romford, we knew we had a chance to improve our goal difference. Everyone played well on Saturday and they did again tonight. It was good for Andre to get his first home goals and doubles for Joe (Graham) and Robert (Lachowicz) will give them a good boost too. We had another good crowd in tonight and hopefully, they've enjoyed what they saw and will come back for more."

Phoenix flew out of the starting blocks racing into a two goal lead with just over three minutes played - Payette with his first home goal of the season on 67 seconds quickly followed by Greg Wood two minutes later. Joe Graham crashed a howitzer shot past Charlie Kaylor in the Raiders goal before the nine-minute mark and at that point, Phoenix chose to give Steve Fone the early call to the bench replacing him with number two goalie Adam Summerfield. Fan favourite Andre Payette netted his second of the game shortly afterwards and it was beginning to look very ominous for the Raiders. To their credit, they reduced the arrears in the 15th minute, Matt Turner pouncing to net after Summerfield lost sight of a loose puck, but Phoenix roared back to complete a tremendous opening session as Robert Lachowicz and Payette - completing his hat-trick - both tallied in a 23-second spell in the 17th minute. Romford added a second marker shortly before the first break, diminutive Frankie Harvey scoring on a powerplay to end an eight-goal session.

Hardly surprisingly, Phoenix eased up a little in the second period and despite dominating both the possession and the goalscoring opportunities, they only added one more goal to their total and that only 18 seconds before the second interval - Adam Walker stealing in to finish from close range and notch his 30th of the season so far.

The final session saw Phoenix hit the double figure mark and complete the round dozen as the Raiders were swamped. Joe Graham fired his second of the game before player coach Tony Hand got in on the act netting from a tight angle on his teams second powerplay opportunity. Barely had the cheers died down than Andre Payette bagged his fourth of the game to take him into double figures for the season and the Phoenix into double figures on the night. Little was coming back from a beleaguered Raiders team and goals eleven and twelve came by the 51st minute, Lachowicz grabbing his second and Stephen Wallace rounding off the home scoring. Phoenix understandably relaxed and Frankie Harvey added his second of the game and the Raiders third before they gave their back-up goalie Frankie Sabine the final six minutes of the game.

Tony Hand closed on his teams performance saying, "This weekend will give us a great lift. We've had guys missing for one reason or another and we've taken four valuable points. Next weekend is huge as we go to Slough on Saturday before hosting Guildford on Sunday. It'll be a big ask, but if we could take four points from those two games, we could be right back in the hunt."