Paisley Pirates head coach Ian Turley hailed his side’s battling quality after sealing a four-point weekend with just 21 seconds to spare.
The Renfrewshire side hammered North Ayrshire Wild 10-1 on Saturday night and were looking to back that emphatic win up against Edinburgh Capitals the following evening.
Hosting at Braehead Arena, the game looked set for overtime after Calum Blair and Martyn Guy’s earlier efforts were cancelled out by the Capitals in the second period.
With the clock ticking down, the Pirates feared they could be set for another late heartbreak after Dundee Tigers scored a winner at the death last month.
But this time it was the Paisley side that sailed off into the sunset with a Michael Dobson grabbing a dramatic late decider.
Turley told Renfrewshire Live Sport: “We knew it was going to be a physically tough weekend playing two fixtures back-to-back.
“The system we played against Wild really paid off. We were excellent and controlled the game brilliantly.
“It was a six-period weekend for us so we knew we had to hold off a bit on Saturday to make sure we were ready to go again on Sunday.
“We started off well against Edinburgh and were two up after the first period. Our legs started to tire in the second period and by the third it was on a knife-edge.
“We weren’t clinical enough in the third but thankfully Dobson grabbed the winner for us with about 20 seconds left on the clock.
“A couple of weeks ago we lost to Dundee at home in overtime with literally one second left on the clock. That was a tough one to take so it was great to be on the other end of that this time around, especially for the guys.
“The players showed great resilience. We’ve got a lot of good characters in the squad and the heads didn’t drop late on which is so important.”
After getting their first few league wins under their belt, Turley believes the standard of the SNL this season is stronger than ever before.
He hopes that will help bring the whole club along as they continue to aim to fire themselves up the table.
Turley said: “So far even in our defeats we’ve only been losing by the odd goal here or there.
“There’s great parity in the league this season and these are the kind of tight games you want to play, albeit you’d like to always come out on the winning side.
“You actually don’t want to be beating teams by 10. Overall the league feels a lot stronger across the board to me.
“Personally that challenge brings me on as a coach and it brings the players on as well. The standard is improving all the time and we have no choice but to keep up.
“I think our new players have bedded in nicely now and they know what it means to play for this team.
“I’m really confident this group can go from strength to the strength now.”
READ MORE:
Don't miss the latest headlines from around Renfrewshire. Sign up to our newsletters here
