RYAN FINNERTY was not content with a pat on the back after Braehead Clan’s European home debut ended in glorious failure.

The Champions Hockey League was brought to Scottish shores for the first time ever on Saturday night as top seeds Vaxjo Lakers came to town little over a week after they hammered Clan 10-2 in Sweden.

Given the gulf in class and resources between the two teams, there was no shame in such a result or scoreline in what was Braehead’s maiden match on the continent.

Saturday night’s return was an even tighter affair as a sold out Braehead Arena crowd witnessed their team take a shock early lead through Scott Pitt before eventually being outgunned 3-1.

However, while most supporters and neutrals have praised the application and attitude of Finnerty’s players to put up such a fight, the Clan head coach is not prepared to accept the tag of the gallant and plucky loser.

“We are here to win hockey games, not just compete. We lost a 3-1 game,” he said.

“We know our fans and our building will be rocking every night but I’m not going to sit here and listen to people tell us we competed well, lost, and that we can pat ourselves on the back.

“We are a team here. We don’t want to lose, we don’t think it’s okay to lose. But at the end of the day, regards of their quality, if we want to beat these teams we have to have the right mentality.

“Our mentality is we want to play them tomorrow, we want to go after them and we want to win, especially in our building.”

On the face it, it may appear that Braehead peaked too soon before eventually being overrun by the Swedish champions.

However, nothing could be further from the truth. Clan went in 2-1 down at the end of the first period and 3-1 down at the end of second ahead of a final 20 minutes that could have seen the match turned on it’s head.

The home side saw Brendan Brooks fail to score when one-on-one while last season’s top scorer Stefan Meyer caused havoc in the Vaxjo defence.

Finnerty added: “It’s disappointing we couldn’t get that second goal to put more pressure on them in the end but I think the guys battled and competed hard against one of the best teams we have seen and probably will ever see.

“I thought we were a lot better than we were a week ago and that was kind of our goal to show we are getting better and better with every day and every game.

“I definitely saw improvements. There is still a lot of work in a lot of areas but I’m happy with the way the guys competed, I’m just disappointed with the loss.

“Obviously they had some close ones where Chris Holt made some good saves, We had some opportunities to make it 3-2. We had chances and breakaways that we missed.

“I thought the ice was pretty bad and I think that probably benefited us. The puck was rolling and bouncing.

“When we put them under pressure I thought they struggled to handle us down low. There were a couple of tough calls with penalties in the offensive zone that stopped the momentum but I thought we played pretty well.”