CAPTAIN Matt Foord said Bracknell Bees paid the penalty for a sluggish start when losing to Basingstoke Bison in their National Cup group match, writes Dave Wright.

Bees came back from 2-0 down to lead 4-3 with a little over six minutes remaining, only to concede a late equaliser and then lose 3-2 in the penalty shoot-out.

“We’re really gutted,” admitted Ford following Sunday’s highly-entertaining game at The Hive.

“I think having no game on Saturday had quite an effect.

“We got off to a bit of a slow start and took a few penalties and made a couple of bad decisions in our defence zone.

“We battled back well, but as we were at home we should be playing a lot better than we did.”

Foord continued: “After the game we were all disappointed. The guys are expecting to do well this season and we were expecting to win this one.

“This season we are looking at Basingstoke and Peterborough as the main competition for us, and so they are games we want to win.

“We want to do well in the cup as we want to win some silverware this season – that’s the aim.

“So to come up short is unfortunate. We were made to pay for mistakes and I hope we will learn from them and become a better team.”

Bees, suffering their first defeat in six games, will be looking to return to winning ways this weekend when they have league fixtures away to London Raiders at Lee Valley on Saturday (6.30pm face-off) before hosting Invicta Dynamos on Sunday (6pm).

“Hopefully, we can take all four points, but it won’t be easy,” added Foord.