Invicta Dynamos fought back to win their season opener but the coach was left wondering ‘what if?’ following Sunday’s home defeat.

It was a tough-looking opening weekend for the Mos, starting away at the Solent Devils on Saturday, which ended in a 6-4 comeback win, before losing out 7-5 at home to reigning champions Streatham Redhawks.

“It was a slow start, but a good end to the day,” said coach Karl Lennon, after Saturday’s win - fighting back from 3-0 down thanks to goals from two 16-year-olds.

Both weekend games doubled up as NIHL South Division 1 and NIHL South 1 League Cup Group A fixtures and the Mos were trailing 3-0 at the end of the first period against the Devils.

Youngster Evan Chard got them one back, Mads Thune grabbed another - the first of his four for the weekend - before debutant teenager Dylan Worthy made it 3-3 after a dominant second period.

Thune, Callum Burnett and Aaron Connolly later struck to seal a 6-4 win.

Lennon said: “I was quite happy with how we applied ourselves in the first period, in terms of our structure, the guys did what I asked but the obvious error was the intensity we played out.

“We were quite passive. We needed to be far more aggressive, especially in a small rink, you can’t just sit back, you have to force the issue.

“They were given time to make good passes and we let in a couple of soft goals and then we were on the backfoot.

“It’s a notoriously hard place to come back from behind anyway, because they are very structured, a very well organised team by Alex (Murray) the coach. He has the team all on the same page and then we are having to try and break through what was quite a defensive structure but thankfully we managed to do it.

“What was great was that I was sitting on the bench at the end of the first period, 3-0 down, thinking ‘where do we go from here?’ and I walked back to the dressing room and I could hear screaming, hollering and shouting between the players and that was great, it meant they were managing themselves. They didn’t need me to come in and scream at them.

“We went in, quite calm, and re-centered after they had let their steam out and subsequently made a couple of little tweaks.

“We took Owen (Rider) out of goal and that wasn’t a reflection on his performance, he was kind of left out to dry on a couple of occasions in the period. Brad (Windebank) went in and he was phenomenal.

“More important than that was the change with two younger lads in our line-up. Evan Chard got a couple of shifts, having not seen the ice at all in the first period, and he got a goal to spark us back into life. Mads picked up one very quickly after.

“You could see there was a bit of panic in the Solent team, they called a time out to try and gather themselves. Then our young lad, Dylan Worthy, on his debut scored himself.

“At the end of that period I said to the guys, ‘the two young lads have got us back into the game, now you older guys need to finish the deal!’”

The Mos got the job done, showing the intensity that was missing in the first period, but returned to Gillingham with an even tougher opposition to overcome on Sunday.

Back in Gillingham, the Redhawks went two up before Dan Scott pulled one back. It was 3-1 early in the second but Connolly scored before going off injured and Thune added another to level it up.

This time the Mos were unable to build on the comeback as Streatham restored their advantage from a penalty shot and managed to maintain a lead through to the finish.

Lennon said: “We feel disappointed we didn’t get the result we wanted to get.

“We started a little how we started on the Saturday, a bit passive. There is definitely a quality increase from Solent to Streatham, you can see it and the league tables suggest it also.

“At 3-3 I felt really confident that we would go on and really challenge them. Then we made some really silly mistakes and unforced errors that gave them the goals.

“I felt we had to move hell and high water to get our five goals but we gave them too much. Ultimately that was our undoing.

“If we had started stronger than we did we might have been in a different position than we were by the end of the game. The overriding feeling on Sunday was ‘what if?’”

While goals from Chard and Worthy made a difference on Saturday, Lennon also highlighted Thune’s contribution, with four goals and four assists over the two games.

Lennon said: “That was an outstanding return against two very difficult sides.

“We had dominant spells in both games where we put both teams under stress and that is good. It’s the bits inbetween that we need to tighten up on.

“The unforced errors are things we can control and work on and stop from happening and once we stop those from happening then we will be in a really good space because we have a good group and a good amount of quality.”