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Phoenix battle hard but Steelers take the points

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Manchester Phoenix went down battling tonight against the high-flying Sheffield Steelers who continued their fine run of form to make it nine straight wins for the South Yorkshire outfit.

A disappointing start saw the visitors two-up inside five minutes with Mike Peron and Brent Bobyck scoring before Phoenix settled and fought back well with Mika Skytta scoring with a nice backhand finish into the roof of the net in the tenth minute. Dwight Parrish put the Phoenix on level terms early into the second period with a superb wrist shot from the right wing but the Steelers regained the advantage with Peron bagging his second of the game and then Gerad Adams adding a fourth goal on a powerplay. Steelers wrapped up the points in the third period as Kirk DeWaele fired home from long range through a crowd of players in the 52nd minute.

Phoenix coach Rick Brebant noted, “not having Eric Lind here meant we had to move Mike Morin back on defence and I thought he did a superb job once again and deserved his Man of the Match award. I thought we battled hard, the players mostly put in a good solid effort and apart from a couple of breakdowns I was reasonably pleased.”

He added afterwards, “I know we’ve not had the best of results lately, but I can assure all our fans that we are working extremely hard to correct things. I’d like to wish them all a Happy Christmas right now and look forward to seeing them all back in the arena on Boxing Day. We are making some changes to our roster and I remain very positive that the turn of the year will see a turn in our fortunes.”