Invicta Dynamos have broken their losing run and now they're eyeing up a semi-final spot in the NIHL Southern Cup.

The Mos will need to beat Oxford City Stars at Planet Ice, Gillingham this Sunday for a chance to progress in the cup competition but first they face a Junior Raiders team in the league who will be smarting from a defeat in a thriller last weekend.

Karl Lennon’s Dynamos begin another busy weekend on Saturday with a trip to the Junior Raiders - a side they beat 6-5 on Sunday.

That NIHL South Division 1 match against the Raiders - delayed 45 minutes due to mechanical problems with the ice resurfacer - was a rollercoaster, leading 4-0 at one stage only to find themselves 5-4 down and relying on a final-period fightback to ensure they grabbed the points.

Lennon said: “It was one of those nights that should have been a lot easier than it was in the end, not because of the opposition, they were good, but we let them back in.

“We were quite fortunate in the end to get a result but we’ll take a win, we needed a win and that was our prime focus last week. It was not pretty, it was ugly, but we’ll take an ugly win if we have to, no problem at all.”

The Mos went into Sunday’s game off the back of five defeats.

“In most cases we had played pretty well but we had been depleted with injuries,” said the Coach.

“The team we played, Romford (Raiders), they had beaten Slough on the Saturday night, a team who beat us the previous week, so we knew we were in for a tough fixture.”

A delay to the match wasn’t ideal but the Mos handled it better, going into a 3-0 lead. Goals came from Juraj Huska, Ed Stedman - his first for the club backing up some fantastic recent form - and Tom Davis. Louis Colvin extended the lead early in the second but the Raiders hit back. It was 4-2 with 20 minutes to go.

The visitors made the most of their powerplays and eventually crept into the lead. Mos called for a time-out.

Lennon said: “We were 3-0 up and seemingly coasting but we were quite wasteful with some of the chances we had and didn’t really put them to bed. In the second period we started okay but from our point of view a series of needless penalties gave them powerplays and they scored from all three of them.

“At 4-4 and you think ‘what have we done to ourselves here?!’ They took a 5-4 lead and the momentum had swung completely.

“We took a time-out and it was one of those ‘do you want to be a winner or a loser’ moments to the guys. The guys had the ability, they had scored four goals against them already.”

The Mos rallied in the last 10 minutes. Huska scored with the Raiders shorthanded and Colvin won it with a blue line shot. The visitors pulled their goalie with less than a minute left but Lennon’s side hung on to win it.

The coach said: “The important point on it was game management and when in a position of strength how to manage that, making easy work of the situation rather than making it difficult.

"It was a great spectacle for the fans that were there, they grew in voice as the game went on, they will always go home with a smile on their face from a last-gasp win.”

The Raiders are sure to want to put that result right when they meet in Essex this Saturday.

“I guess they will be looking to avenge that defeat,” Lennon said. “It is a tough fixture for us, to go away to. We will take confidence from the win just gone and we will have to be at our best to beat them on Saturday.”

It’s then back to Gillingham on Sunday for the crucial cup match against the Oxford City Stars. The two sides are currently leading the standings in the four-team group, ahead of Chelmsford Chieftains and Streatham - sides who will be have been well fancied for success at the start of the competition.

The Mos know they need a win in their final group stage match.

Lennon said: “A semi-final place is a good prize in itself for us as a new team and there is an opportunity as well to knock a couple of big teams out of the competition.” Oxford won the reverse fixture 8-6.

“That’s one we would want back,” said the coach. “We were very good in spells of that game and at the end of it we ran out of steam and let ourselves down in the final period where at one point we were 6-5 up and ended up losing 8-6, not a good night at the office for us!”

The Most should have healthy sized roster for the weekend and hope to have Tom Long back from illness. The puck drops on Sunday at 5.15pm and online ticket bookings are recommended to avoid disappointment.