RYAN FINNERTY has admitted his frustration after a stuttering first few months of the campaign has left his title-chasing Braehead Clan in sixth place.
Following on from being pipped to last season’s EIHL title by just a point, expectations were through the Braehead Arena roof that the team from Glasgow could go one step further and be crowned champions for the first time this time round. It is a fairytale that has yet to materialise for Clan and the thousands of fans that have seen them struggle for consistency over the past few months.
While November’s seven fixtures could quite easily have heralded seven victories – bringing with them enough points to catapult Braehead into title contention – not being able to close games out has proved costly on more than one occasion.
That was the case on Saturday when a 2-0 lead against the Fife Flyers in Kirkcaldy was surrendered in the last period en route to a 3-2 loss, a result that was corrected on home ice on Sunday with a 3-0 win. Regardless, that turnaround was not enough to lift the mood of Clan head coach Finnerty, who confessed to sympathising with fans’ frustrations.
“I’m not too happy with the win one, lose one scenario and the way we lost in Fife was unacceptable,” he said. “We collapsed in the final period and didn’t have a lot of pressure to answer back, which left a bitter taste in the mouth.
“Ahead of the game on Sunday, we had a meeting and spoke some harsh truths about the situation. The fans and management won’t accept it and there’s no point looking around. We have to man up.”
He added: “When we look at the table and where we could have been, it’s frustrating to realise that if you win the games in hand, you could be among the top spots. We want to control our own destiny and we’re just not getting the consistency to able to do that.
“It’s a weird season and we’ve seen a 20-goal game in Edinburgh, a 9-8 game in Braehead a couple of weeks ago and other strange scores across the teams.
“It’s hard for something like me to get my head around and I’ve been here for around 10 years, so I can understand the frustration of the fans.
"You just don’t know what you’re getting in this league, which is a good thing, but there is expectation on us and after the success of the last year, that’s the price of it.”
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