Sheffield Steelers boss confident his beaten team will reach the Challenge Cup final

Steelers concede at Fife in their first leg defeat

Steelers must go to Belfast and arrest an unwelcome slide in results that threatens to undermine their challenge for EIHL titles.

After a glorious 11-match winning sequence they have lost four of the last seven matches.

Wednesday's 2-3 defeat at Fife Flyers in the Challenge Cup Semi-Final first leg was their third defeat in four outings.

This certainly isn't the right time to be picking up losses.

Robert Dowd scores in front of the ttravelling Steelers fans at Fife

The only positive you could take from this latest setback, is that it is most certainly retrievable.

A one goal first leg reverse can be amended in the second game on February 15.

Aaron Fox can take some satisfaction from the fact they had plenty of the puck in Scotland, they just didn't put it away enough.

"Five on five I think we dictated play for most of the night," he said.

Players all heading in different directions at Fife

"They defended very well, blocked a lot of shots, got some good goaltending."

Steelers have been trying to improve their first-period output.

They must have been shaking their heads after falling 0-2 behind at Fife.

They'd had more of the puck and as many chances.

But their penalty killers were unable to stop Mikael Johansson, (on a power play after Steeler Evan Mosey was called for slashing) and Zack Phillips (Tomáš Pitule; for holding) beat Matt Greenfield.

"Two power play goals is basically all they had in that period, but conceding two is never good" reflected the coach.