By Tom Pink

I can’t stress enough just how good that was.

If you wanted a performance for the last home game of the year, then you were in all sorts of luck on Saturday. My word.

I couldn’t agree more with Pete Taylor’s analysis in his Coach’s Corner this week and I’ll reiterate some of that here. It felt like it had been coming though. We’d been playing too well recently not to take the points in one of these.

There were some pre-game jitters from yours truly that Peterborough would make a clean sweep of 5-1’s against us, but that really wasn’t the case at all thankfully, and it didn’t ever really look like being likely either.

I’ve been talking for a while about taking our chances, about shot to goal ratios, about beating the “bigger” teams in the league, and you’ll be glad to know I can shut up about that now, for this week at least.

Four brilliantly taken goals. A defensive performance for the ages. A netminder standing on his head. Dylan Phillips was unreal. Some of the saves he made were exceptional, and he more than deserved the Player of the Match award. Definite game winner.

We’ve been on the wrong end of some of these recently, and on Saturday it was someone else’s turn to rue missed chances. It’s a really fast start, and it never lets up in truth. It’s end to end early on.

Benet Beldecos finds Joe Willingham who’s smothered by Luke Clark in the Peterborough net. Matt Hepburn nearly rounds Luke to steal the puck behind net but is fractionally late. Peterborough turn the screw and we struggle to get out of the defensive zone for a while. Dylan makes his first saves of the game, the first of many. One on the breakaway and then a couple in quick succession.

There’s a couple of very nice hits thrown into the mix early on too. First Ryan Payne in the corner and then Leo De Souza on the boards. Very nice tone setters. James Hepburn heads to the net but it’s a pad save and he’s bundled over.

Haringey defended really well I thought, from front to back. There always seemed to be two players in black and white around the one in purple and orange when they had the puck.

Benet almost puts us ahead. It’s a save from the right that Luke has little idea about, looking around at where it might be sliding away, but it’s safe.

Is it possible to have every Haringey player celebrate their 100th game every week? We need to have a look at the calendar otherwise because it’s a guaranteed goal at the moment.

Matt Hepburn marks the occasion, as Leo recently did, with a sensational goal. He’d missed a very similar chance against Guildford the week before, but this time Matt’s ruthless. It’s the brothers that link up, James Hepburn holds the puck on the boards, Matt takes over and drives towards net on the left and sticks it low into the back of the net. Brilliant short handed goal, brilliant 100th game goal. Brilliant all round. I’m genuinely made up for him.

Dylan then makes the save of the game for me. It’s a diving save, sprawling to his left across the goal line, he manages to prevent the puck from crossing the line, can’t cover but gets it clear. These are the moments you need in games like these. Top quality.

He makes another impressive save moments later, with puck and Phantoms’ player haring towards him, it’s a big save at the edge of the crease as the puck takes a couple of nasty bounces.

A great period all told. Yes we’d had to dig in, to hang on for parts, but that’s always going to be on the cards when you play the best teams.

The second starts fast again. Peterborough ring off the iron early on. Marton Szasz fires over the bar after racing through on the breakaway.

The Phantoms draw level after 10 minutes though. They round the net and feed the puck into the slot where a one-timer nestles into the bottom corner. They should go 1-2 up straight after. It’s a big miss at the backdoor after they work it tic-tac-toe across the offensive zone, but it’s fired wide of the post.

But it’s the third where Haringey really come to life. Gone are the regrets, banished are the what-ifs, the could-have-beens. This was Haringey at their clinical best. Robert Rejna receives the puck on the right, turns, then wrists one into the roof of the net far side with a very cultured finish. A really, really nice goal for 2-1.

Stephen Woodford sends Stuart Appleby through but he shoots over with Luke Clark in front of him. Corey Taylor shows great strength along the boards. Benet plays a lovely wall pass to himself but loses control of the puck.

Corey then steps up to score an absolute beauty and hits a shot with eyes from the point, through traffic, into the corner. Great hit and 3-1. It’s soon four. Stu finds Woody from behind the goal line and he makes no mistake, adding the finishing touch to a brilliant performance.

Peterborough are still dangerous though. They have another glorious chance to score at the back stick but it’s spurned again.

Conner Smith has a late surge, crashes the net but it’s off the posts and the whistle’s blown. He makes a fantastic recovery moments later to stop a 1-on-1 situation for Peterborough. Peterborough pull Luke with 30 seconds left in the game, and for a moment it’s 6-on-4 for them, but Haringey stand firm.

Why is it always with 30 seconds left? At 4-1 down there surely can’t be enough time to impact the result, but time and again I’ve seen games in South 2 where it’s left so late to try this. If you’re three goals down with only minutes left in the game, you can probably afford to take more of a risk, can’t you? Losing 5-1 isn’t going to make a huge difference to 4-1, but that’s just me.

As Pete said, it was a good performance for 60 minutes. They never let up, they dug in, they played for each other. As good as the goals were, as good as it was to score against the league leaders and to end their unbeaten run, I thought the entire team defended valiantly and that was a huge part of why we left with all three points.

To Chelmsford then. They picked up a shootout win against Bristol recently but they’re played seven, lost five at the moment. By the way, if anyone knows what is going on with Bristol I’d love to know, because it seems like they’ve completely fallen off a cliff. A shadow of the side they were last year, and unrecognisable from the team that won the league in 2022/23.

There’s two games left in 2024 for the Huskies, and it would be fantastic to win them both. Chelmsford will be tough, and if I remember correctly, it took us a while to warm into the fixture last year but we end up 0-5 winners. Invicta in the Eddie Joseph Memorial Cup will be a right tussle too. I do think getting to the final is probably out of our reach, but winning puts the ball in Invicta’s court at least, and anything can happen over one game.

There are many reasons to be cheerful. It’s the holiday season, Christmas is around the corner, Haringey are winning and scoring goals. Before the year is out I will have become a dad for the first time, which although is incredibly exciting I am also absolutely bricking it. But it’s amazing how quickly things can change; in life, in hockey, in this league.

Let’s see the year out in style. Let’s Go Huskies.