James Parsons says Deeside Dragons have learned some painful lessons from their first defeat of the season – and promised the same mistakes won’t be made twice.

The Dragons’ winning start to the Laidler Conference season came to a shuddering halt last Saturday evening when they went down 7-2 to Nottingham Lions at Deeside Ice Rink.

It means they are five points behind the Lions in the table, although they do have three games in hand.

And after having a weekend without a fixture, Dragons forward Parsons can’t wait to return to action this Saturday with a trip to Coventry Blaze (6.45pm).

“I think everything just fell apart last week and Nottingham came out flying from the start of the game. We just didn’t handle it well enough,” said Parsons, who has been a key part of the Dragons’ charge to second place in the standings,

“The whole squad was upset with what happened, and in shock. We had a talk about it afterwards and knew there was nothing we could do about the result.

“We need to look ahead to the next game, make sure we train hard to iron out the problems and put them right. We’ll have the answers next time.”

Parsons maintained his 100 per cent scoring record in the loss to Nottingham, slotting home at the end of the first period and halving the visitors’ advantage.

That goal was little consolation for the 28-year-old, who retains a remarkable strike rate of 1.59 goals per game at Laidler Conference level.

He added: “I have scored in every game, which is great for me personally, and something I want to continue. We have won a few games by a large margin this season, so it is hard when you just can’t get going, like last week. Their netminder smothered a lot of shots and we will definitely learn from it.

“Lol Paul (head coach) said afterwards that at least we’ve had a game like that at the start of the season. We can move on now and start to put things right.

“Training this week has been hard and fast. All the guys want to put the game behind them”