Hull Seahawks: Matty Davies on response to NIHL National punishment and Sheffield Steeldogs snap losing streak

Hull saw the points won in a 6-5 overtime win at Peterborough Phantoms on February 9 taken off them after boss Matty Davies stood behind the bench for a game he was banned from doing so in due to the team having exceeding 50 team penalty points - a threshold which means a two-game ban for the team’s head coach.

Davies says email notification from the league informing of his ban never arrived.

The league rules state that monitoring penalty points is the responsibility of the clubs themselves.

As a result, Peterborough were awarded a mandatory 5-0 win, Davies hit with an additional two-game ban - which he served at the weekend - and the team hit with a further 10 penalty points.

Davies and his organisation lost their appeal against the decision earlier in the week but responded to the two points deduction impressively with a 100 per cent weekend against Berkshire Bees, following up Saturday’s 4-1 road win with a 6-2 win on home ice 24 hours later.

Both nights saw the Seahawks severely short-benched due to injuries and suspension.

Speaking to fans after Sunday’s win, Davies said: “I’m obviously not happy about it (the points deduction) and I feel that we’ve been a little hard done to.

“I think this just comes down to communication - common sense could have been applied to this and that was my argument.

“But we’ll brush it off and just keep going and keep winning games and go into the play-offs with a little bit of spite in our game because when you feel hard done to, that’s often how it is.

“It is a mistake from us and that’s the reality of it, that’s just the ruling so we’ve got to accept that.”

It was Emil Svec who led the way for Hull in Sunday’s win, the Seahawks’ skater tally boosted to 14 through the return of captain Bobby Chamberlain and Jordan Fisher.

The Czechia-born forward opened the scoring in the fifth minute before Owen Sobchak – chalking up his 100th point of the season – Johnny Corneil and Jason Hewitt also found the net, Svec rounding off the scoring with two more goals in the last 10 minutes.

Elsewhere, Sheffield Steeldogs snapped a three-game losing streak with a 4-2 win at home to Solway Sharks.

Scott Henderson put the visitors ahead after just 70 seconds but it was the Steeldogs who went in ahead at the break through goals from Walker Sommer and Ivan Björkly-Nordström.

Brady Doxey made it 3-1 early in the second but after Kell Beattie made it a one-goal game again with a power play strike at 48.26 there were some understandable nerves in the home crowd until Sommer scored an empty net goal with just one second remaining.