Saturday 3rd February saw the Buccaneers host the Wyre Seagulls in their second game in less than a week.

The game got underway and the Buccs run into the same problems they’d faced in Flintshire a week earlier. A slow start and some disorganised play at the back combined with some fast offense for Wyre gifted the Seagulls chance after chance in front of the goal. The Buccs also found themselves in early penalty trouble and the Seagulls were clinical on the powerplay. Goals from Jon Brumby, Fleet, Hageman, Duncan and Hardman put the Seagulls 5-0 up with less than 11 minutes of the game played. After the flurry of goals the Buccs settled down a little and held off the Wyre offense for the rest of the period.

The second period started in the same vein as the first though and Chris Brumby made it 6-0 on the 23 minute mark. This was followed up by a marker from Ben Cleary to make it 7 halfway through the period. Then the Buccaneers finally got on the board. A powerplay meant a little extra space in the zone and Anthony-Jones laid a pass to Walsh who fired a slapshot from the blue. The puck took a deflection off a Wyre skate and that combined with the traffic in front of the goal gave Milhench little chance. This seemed to spark some life into the ‘home’ team and less than 30 seconds later they had another. Anthony-Jones again the provider, skating the puck in deep before laying off to Longworth who was perfectly positioned to fire home from the slot.

The third period was fairly uneventful until the halfway point when the Seagulls clicked back into gear offensively with 4 goals in 5 minutes from Hardman, Duncan and two from Dan Coxon. The Buccaneers got a another with 6 seconds left on the clock when Walsh skated the puck into the zone and fired over Milhench’s blocker for his second but this was nothing more than a consolation. Final score Buccaneers 3-11 Wyre Seagulls.

Buccs captain Michael Walsh gave his thoughts on the game:

Again, we started slowly and it cost us. Against teams with this kind of quality, you have to hit the ground running or you’re going to find yourself in trouble. We took too many penalties and every credit to Wyre, they punished us. We showed in the second period that we’re capable of competing but the challenge for us now is to turn that 20/30 mins of solid play into a full 60 minutes.

Seagulls MVP went to Jon Brumby for a solid performance on the Wyre blueline. Buccs MVP was Michael Walsh.

Scoring Summary
Buccaneers:
Walsh 2+0
Longworth 1+0
Anthony Jones 0+2

Seagulls:
Duncan 2+1
Hardman 2+1
Coxon 2+0
C. Brumby 1+2
Fleet 1+2
J. Brumby 1+0
Cleary 1+0
Hageman 1+0
Milhench 0+1

Penalty Summary
Buccaneers:
McLoughlin 10 mins
Palmer 8 mins
Walsh 2 mins
Beesley 2 mins

Seagulls:
Duncan 2 mins
May 2 mins
Bench 2 mins