THE Gillingham-based Invicta Dynamos ice hockey team staged a late rally to snatch a 5-5 draw with Romford Raiders at the Ice Bowl last night.

The result was enough for them to leapfrog above the Raiders and into the top five of the English Premier League.

But Dynamos captain Phil Chard was disappointed they did not take maximum points. "We would have hoped to beat Romford at home," he said: "There was no way we should have tied the game.

"Their goalie stopped everything, the puck was coming off his laces, body and everywhere else. He was either very luck or very good."

Chard added: "We thought we had broken our duck of giving teams the lead by scoring early, but then they came back and got three.

"We played very well in the third period, like we usually do, to end up drawing but we have just got to get ourselves going better at the start of games."

The Dynamos got off to the best possible start when Duane Ward fired the puck into the top corner after only 58 seconds.

But for the remainder of the period things started going wrong for the home side as the Essex outfit hit three goals.

Robert Jenner slid the puck into an empty net on 6:01 before a breakaway by Romford, while they were short-handed, led to Jamie Randall (7:17) getting the second.

Rob Douglas made it three for the Raiders when he netted on 13:57 to leave the Dynamos with an uphill battle in the second period.

It got worse for the home side on 30:41 when Noel Burkitt scored an unassisted goal on the powerplay.

But the home side gave themselves some hope when Carl Greenhous (38:38) reduced the deficit by scoring a powerplay goal.

The Dynamos came out firing on all cylinders for the final 20 minutes and, only 26 seconds into the period, scored through Elliot Andrews.

And on 42:46 Stuart Low, playing against his former club, set up Phil Chard for a brilliant equaliser.

The action was end-to-end and Dynamos took the lead for the first time since early in the game when a good move involving Ward and Chard enabled Matt Beveridge to score a fine goal on 56:10.

But the Dynamos joy was shortlived when, only a few seconds after the restart, Douglas equalised for the visitors (56:22).

In a frantic finale, both sides successfully killed penalties as the honours ended even.