Sheffield Steelers: Aaron Fox takes positives despite defeat in Cardiff

His side, without suspended Michael Davies and Marco Vallerand, outshot the Welsh 46-22 but couldn't find an equaliser in the third period.

They had twice gone ahead in the first and second periods, but the result saw them slip into second place in the table, tied on points with Belfast Giants.

Glasgow Clan went back to the top of the pile.

"Anytime you come into this building you know that this team will come ready to go and play hard," said Fox.

"I thought we matched energy early, I think the reffing in the first kind of took away how good a game it could have been...but our tempo was there our guys really battled.

"We were short handed, we had two first line guys out of our line-up.

"Some other guys stepped up, we played relentlessly with a ton of pressure."

The coach, who leads his team into battle at Manchester Storm on Sunday evening, added: "I thought we had them on their heels. I really liked our game I liked our battle, I liked our compete, it is just unfortunately the result wasn't exactly what we wanted. We couldn't find that fourth one, late."