Coach tells Tigers to get goals ugly

Tigers enjoyed the vast majority of possession on Sunday evening, eventually recording a total of 41 shots to the visitors' 22.

But they struggled to find a way past import netminder Janis Auzins, who put in a man-of-the-match performance to collect his shutout.

And Watkins believes his strikers must 'step up' to solve their current drought in front of goal.

He said: "We will be focusing on the things that have cost us in training next week, but ultimately the forwards have got to find a way of putting the puck in the back of the net.

"You can look at one of the Peterborough goals, when it hit the netminder's chest and bounced into the net.

"The only way we're going to beat some of these guys is to get in front of them, screen the net and score some ugly goals."

The first period remained goalless as both sides struggled to beat some determined defending, with Tigers netminder Sam Gospel enjoying his first start of the year.

But it was in the second period that Telford's luck began to turn, as they fell behind to a Phantoms goal at the halfway point of the game.

A fighting match penalty for youngster Blaho Novak made matters worse at the start of the third period, leaving the Tigers short-handed.

That penalty gave Peterborough the chance to score their second goal of the night on 45 minutes, condemning Telford to their fourth loss of the league season.

Watkins added: "It was naive, stupid and selfish of Blaho to take that penalty, as it's ultimately cost us the game. We were killing a five on four for five minutes and they got a powerplay goal.

"That knocked our confidence and deflated us at a time when we had our belief. He's a young guy who made a mistake and we've got to come back hard."

Those statistics do, however, illustrate a dominant performance from Telford – and Watkins is expecting leadership from his strike force.

He said: "We are playing well and creating good chances, but our top-end forwards need to step up. We need leadership from them to make sure we take advantage of that possession and quality play."

The Tigers travel to face Basingstoke Bison on Saturday, before the visit of Bracknell Bees on Sunday.