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Berwick Bandits v Workington Comets
Premier Trophy (Group), 26 March 2005
Shielfield Park, Berwick

Berwick 53
1Adrian Rymel32302 ..100
2Adam Pietraszko11*30. ..51
3Simon Cartwright2032*. ..71
4Michal Makovsky1*32*2. ..82
5Piotr Dym32321* ..111
6Chris Schramm21*2*1*. ..63
7Joachim Kugelmann1*113. ..61
Workington 39
1Carl Stonehewer21*R1. ..41
2Kevin Little020.. ..20
3Scott Robson301*R^. ..41
4Kauko Nieminen034^30 ..100
5Shaun Tacey23133 ..120
6Tony DartR00.. ..00
7James Wright30211 0.70

* = BP. ^ = TR . ! = TS (15m Handicap). # = TR (Points Not Doubled). & = TS (Points Not Doubled, 15m Handicap).

Berwick rode at Workington last night and left themselves with a 14 point deficit to overcome to take all three points on offer. Both teams went into the return match tonight at full strength.

Any hopes Berwick might have had of making a fast start were dashed as, after an opening 4-2 in heat 1, Workington dug in and matched the Bandits with five 3-3 shared heats out of the next six. The only exception was another 4-2 to Berwick in heat 4 when Shaun Tacey, by far Workington’s best rider, could only split the Dym/Kugelmann pairing. This meant that after heat 7 the score was 23-19.

After that Berwick rattled in a 4-2 in heat 8 from Pietraszko and Kugelmann followed by a 5-1 in heat 9 from Cartwright and Makovsky ahead of Shaun Tacey to seriously damage any hopes Workington had of getting a result. Now 10 points adrift, Workington gave Kauko Nieminen a TR in heat 10 but he could only finish second to Adrian Rymel. With his partner, Scott Robson, finishing second though Workington took their first heat advantage of the night with a 3-5 which brought them back to 8 points adrift at 35-27.

Berwick then took full advantage of two pieces of misfortune for the Comets by scoring 5-1s in heats 11 and 12. In heat 11 Carl Stonehewer shed a chain on the first bend and Piotr Dym and Chris Schramm took maximum points. Then in heat 11 Workington gave a TR to Scott Robson but that went awry when he had an engine failure and the Comets were left watching Kugelmann and Cartwright heading James Wright home. These two results put Berwick 45-29 up and 2 ahead on aggregate for the bonus point.

However, Workington were not finished and brought the aggregate scores back to level with a 2-4 in heat 13 won by Shaun Tacey from Piotr Dym while Carl Stonehewer kept Adrian Rymel in last place. The tension rose as Nieminen won heat 14 to share the points and when Shaun Tacey did likewise in heat 15 the scores were still tied on aggregate meaning that a race-off was necessary to determine which team was going to take the bonus point. The race off was won by Shaun Tacey from Adrian Rymel to leave Berwick kicking themselves for letting the bonus slip from an earlier winning position and undoing some of the good they had done themselves from gaining a draw at Glasgow last Sunday.

Match Report by Merlin