WIDNES Wild women’s team came close to causing a major upset in their clash with Premier League leaders Chelmsford Cobras on Sunday but ended up losing 6-5 in a thrilling match.

Cobras arrived having won all of their 5 league games to date and having conceded just 3 goals in the process, so the Wild women knew that they were in for a tough time.

The home side were comfortably out-shot throughout the game, but this didn’t stop them having a real go at the league leaders who had travelled with barely enough players to ice two full lines.

After a tense, end to end, start, it was the Wild who opened the scoring in the 12th minute through their Belgian international player Leen de Decker and, although Chelmsford equalised three minutes later, the score of 1-1 at the end of the first period was a real credit to the Wild women.

They started the second period with two more goals – from De Decker, again, just 25 seconds from the restart, and then Sav Sumner just 90 seconds after that – to give the Wild a 3-1 lead.

That advantage lasted less than a minute, however, as the Cobras fired in two goals within 20 seconds of each other to tie the score at 3-3 with 37 minutes still left to play in the game.

Wild heads might have dropped at this point but they didn’t and the Widnes players rallied and came out battling once again.

Team captain Charlene Chapman put them back in the lead in the 38th minute and the Wild women took a highly deserved 4-3 scoreline into the final period.

The third period was very tense and there were chances for both sides.

Chelmsford equalised with 10 minutes left to play and then edged themselves into the lead for the first time in the match with a powerplay goal in the 55th minute while the Wild’s Megan Bowen Fell was sitting out the only penalty in the whole game for tripping.

An even-handed goal a minute later from Cobras’ Tereza Plankova – who scored 4 in total – put the game tantalisingly beyond the Wild women’s reach, and a strike by Widnes’ Amanda Williams with just 13 seconds remaining brought the final score to 5-6.

The Wild women have three weekends without a game and then face three away trips in a row, playing Bracknell Firebees on 10th February, Swindon Topcats on 11th February and Kingston Diamonds on 18th February.

They are next at home on Sunday 25th February when they play Kingston Diamonds in the Women’s Premier League at Silver Blades Widnes – 5.30pm face off.