We had our new signing Dan Tessier in the line up and we were full of confidence. I said that we had to give it our all, work harder than we had ever done and do you know what, we did.

Circumstances did go against us, our starting goalie Jody Lehman had the nightmare of decisions to make, his wife Raquel went into labour hours before the game and he missed the final we all know he desperately wanted to play in. We all had faith in Davey Lawrence our No2 goalie, in fact the mood in the room was 'lets win it for Jody,' before the game.

All the guys would have loved Jody starting, however we all supported his decision to stay with Raquel. I don't think there was a player in the room that would have done anything differently. We're delighted all's well with all three of the Lehmans and look forward to smoking a big cigar after this weekend's games.

We played well first period, every line dominated Nottingham, we scored early when Doug Sheppard tipped home a Randy DeGanais shot and we were on our way.

We out shot the Panthers 17-5 in the first period, when we came off I thought, we should be three-up by now. It came back to bite us, those missed chances, or should I say those great saves by Nottingham goalie Tom Askey. The mood in the room was still good at the end of the second period when the score was 2-2

The Panthers didn't have many chances, we out-played them and out-chanced them but they found a way through our team and past Davey. We felt for him, we knew with Jody missing people might point the finger, well we didn't in the room.

Ashley Tait made a good point - 'there are 5 of us in front of him and they have to get past us first.' He was right.

Three goals down going to Nottingham, isn't too big a lead as we have played well in the NIC this year and have two wins already. We can win again and by three goals.

Before that we play against Hull Saturday and then we're in my old town Cardiff 24 hours later. At this time of the year it's all go, game after game. You can't dwell on a defeat, especially after playing so well. We move on, the best way of winning the Challenge Cup is by going into that second leg on February 20 full of confidence and the only way we can do that is by winning our league games up until that point.