Sheffield Steelers boss confident his beaten team will reach the Challenge Cup final

After a glorious 11-match winning sequence they have lost four of the last seven matches.

Wednesday's 2-3 defeat at Fife Flyers in the Challenge Cup Semi-Final first leg was their third defeat in four outings.

This certainly isn't the right time to be picking up losses.

The only positive you could take from this latest setback, is that it is most certainly retrievable.

A one goal first leg reverse can be amended in the second game on February 15.

Aaron Fox can take some satisfaction from the fact they had plenty of the puck in Scotland, they just didn't put it away enough.

"Five on five I think we dictated play for most of the night," he said.

"They defended very well, blocked a lot of shots, got some good goaltending."

Steelers have been trying to improve their first-period output.

They must have been shaking their heads after falling 0-2 behind at Fife.

They'd had more of the puck and as many chances.

But their penalty killers were unable to stop Mikael Johansson, (on a power play after Steeler Evan Mosey was called for slashing) and Zack Phillips (Tomáš Pitule; for holding) beat Matt Greenfield.

"Two power play goals is basically all they had in that period, but conceding two is never good" reflected the coach.

Sheffield badly needed to assert themselves and they managed that on 27 minutes when Robert Dowd scored his fourth goal in five games, Niklas Nevalainen assisting.

And they were all square four minutes later when Martin Latal equalised at the back door, from Danny Kristo's crisp pass, on a power play.

But Steelers were caught out again at 43:30.

An attack up the left wing fizzled out, Flyers countered and quickly outnumbered Sheffield in their own zone, defenceman Brayden Sherbinin joined the counter and buried a rebound.

At first sight, it looked like a goal Steelers conceded at home to Guildford Flames a week and a half earlier.

Fox said: "No, I don't think it was that.

"The puck got turned over at the blue line, we have a little bit of a collision there, two guys end up on the ice and their defenceman joined the rush to make it a four on three."

He remains optimistic his side can progress to a Cup final at Belfast (who beat Guildford in the other semi.)

"We are in a good position to do that, for sure."

Fox said he did not know if Sebastian Piche, who has suffered a niggle, will play at Belfast in the back-to-back games.

He is "day to day" said the coach.

The team stayed in Glasgow on Wednesday, ahead of a ferry journey to Northern Ireland and a pre-game skate on Friday.