Fife Flyers 11 Lancashire Hawks 5 ; Lancashire Hawks 4 Fife Flyers 10

IGNORE the scorelines, gallant Lancashire Hawks battled against all odds before finally bowing to former skipper John Haig.

Successive defeats to Fife Flyers in ice hockey's Northern League served only to tell half the tale. In light of the circumstances, not least an injury list of crisis proportions, Hawks put up a highly creditable display in Scotland on Saturday before turning in one of their most spirited Arena performances of the season 24 hours later.

Even at full strength Hawks were always going to find it hard going.

But with only one recognised import in Ismo Rokala, two senior stars Simon Mills and Colin Downie, absent through injury and Neil Abel unable to carry on after the first period, it promised a mission impossible last night.

Hawks drafted in Finnish star Teemu Jelkanen from their English Division One side Phoenix, brought Ian Hough, a youth coach, out of retirement and had 15-year-old starlet Wesley Fawthrop as bench cover for Barry Hollyhead.

Fife were ahead inside 38 seconds through Mark Morrison (later to bag a hat trick) only for Tim Dempsey to produce a seventh-minute equaliser.

Fife then surged into a 1-6 lead and a massacre looked on the cards.

Enter Tom Burridge.

Burridge scored twice within two minutes before Rokala joined in to pull it back to 4-6. Game on? Not quite.

The Flyers, with Haig pulling the strings, settled themselves to add four more, but the end result flattered the visitors.

Period scores 1-4, 0-2, 3-4.

Scoresheet: Tim Dempsey 1+0, Tom Burridge 2+0, Ismo Rokala 1+0, Billy Price 0+1, Alan Hough 0+1.

On Saturday Haig emerged as destroyer-in-chief with a hat-trick, but not before the Lancashire lads had threatened to pull off a shock success.

Hawks actually led at one stage, 2-1 after five minutes, and certainly had Fife sweating. Haig's men were distinctly uncomfortable at 6-5 but pulled away with five goals in the final 11 minutes. Again the scoreline didn't do Hawks justice, but one of the biggest cheers of the night came in the final minute when tiny Fawthrop got his big chance.

Period scores: 3-2, 3-2, 5-1.

Scoresheet: Neil Abel 1+0, Ismo Rokala 2+1, Jim Pennycook 0+1, Danny Mackriel 0+1, Alan Hough 0+2, Bobby Haig 1+2, Ian Plews 1+0.

For the record Hawks have now lost 10 times to Fife this season.

Hawks are in action again tomorrow night with a Northern League home date with Paisley (face-off 8pm).

Hawks now know their opponents in the end-of-season play-off next month - Cardiff Rage, Telford Tigers, Peterborough Pirates and Fife Flyers.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.