RYAN FINNERTY has sought to reassure the Braehead Clan support that there is more to come from their team ahead of a momentous week for the club.

The Glasgow side are making their Champions Hockey League debut this week starting off with a tie in Sweden against Vaxjo Lakers on Thursday, quickly followed by a Saturday night tussle in Germany with Ingolstadt.

As part of their preparations, Clan travelled to Sheffield at the weekend to take part in the RV Holiday Inn Cup, a two-legged encounter which saw them beaten 4-0 on Saturday before salvaging a 3-3 draw with the Steelers.

It has caused some alarm among supporters that their team won’t be up to scratch in time for the big face off this Thursday in what is the Scottish club’s first ever foray into European hockey.

However, Braehead head coach wishes to allay those fears and reassure the Purple Army that their troops will be more than ready for the stern test awaiting them.

He said: “On Saturday we had good spurts, while I wasn’t happy with how we started on Sunday, but got better as the game progressed and they got the lucky bounce to equalise at the end.

“I thought we executed our game plan well and they’re a good team. Our conditioning levels are still to get up, but we’ll work on that before we get on the flight to Sweden.

“It’s really tough to analyse a weekend like that when you’re missing four players, but I thought our young guys stood up to the test well.

“They saw a lot of ice time and situations they may not see normally, but they took advantage of that time and used it efficiently.

“I saw good things out of everyone over the two games so overall, we’ve come out of that weekend injury free and now we look ahead to our trip in Europe.”

The bulk of Braehead’s squad only arrived in the last couple of weeks meaning the games against Sheffield were their first taste of a game situation ahead of this week.

It was important for Finnerty to give his players a taste of the action prior to flying out on Wednesday to Copenhagen, and he believes it served its purpose.

He added: “It was a good weekend when you consider the line-up we had and the limited preparation time in the build-up.

“Steelers had five days on the ice, where we only had two skating sessions before we went there. Those are not excuses, but merely the reality of the situation in the build-up.

“The two games have served their purpose and it’s a situation where the scorelines didn’t matter, although you always want to win.

“There were more important things we wanted to get out of the matches and I feel we have that.”