Rafal Konopka keeps his place and Luke Crang returns from injury as Redcar Bears take on Peterborough Panthers at South Tees Motorsports Park tonight (7.30pm start).
And their contribution from the reserve berths will be crucial to the Ecco Finishing Bears’ chances of picking up Premier League points, says team manager Jitendra Duffill.
Promoter Brian Havelock made no secret of the fact he was talking to potential new signings over the weekend, which could have seen Konopka, Crang or both squeezed out.
But the club have confirmed that their declared 1-7 remains the same ahead of a hectic few days in which they also make the long trek to Plymouth tomorrow then visit Rye House on Saturday.
“Peterborough are a strong side and an exciting side,” said Duffill. “They’re quite smiliar to ourselves in that they have a strong top five, but their reserves look weaker than some of the other teams in the league.
“It’s going to be tough because we’re nearly a couple of points below the points limit at the moment and that means we need someone to lift their game if we’re going to get anything out of it.
“We’re going to need our reserves to step it up - we need a contribution from them.
“But in our last home meeting against a good Plymouth team we took all three points with virtually the same side.
“So we know it can be done - we just need to make sure we do it againt tonight.”
The Bears are currently seventh in the PL table after collecting a point from their curtailed match at Berwick last Saturday night.
“I think if the match had gone the distance we could have won it, especially with Richard Lawson still to take three rides,” said Duffill.
“So hopefully that performance will give the lads some confidence going into a busy few days.”
Tonight’s meeting sees the return to Teesside of former Bears No 1 Ulrich Ostergaard who spent two years with the club.
And Duffill believes he is likely to be one of the Panthers’ dangermen tonight.
“Ulrich was without a team place until Peterborough came in for him,” he said, “so he’ll be coming here with a point to prove. He knows the quickest way around our track so he’ll be one to watch.
“The same goes for Ryan Fisher - when a team has those two in its line-up, you know they are going to be a handful.
“It should make for a close and entertaining meeting.”
The Panthers headed into last night’s match against Sheffield with a clean bill of health.
They are without reserve Ollie Greenwood who is nursing a broken collarbone but recruited Dane Nicki Barrett to replace him earlier this month.
BEARS: Luke Crang, Jan Graversen, Rafal Konopka, Richard Lawson, Hugh Skidmore, Aaron Summers, Carl Wilkinson.
PANTHERS: Nicki Barrett, Lasse Bjerre, Lewis Blackbird, Ales Dryml, Ryan Fisher, Joe Jacobs, Ulrich Ostergaard.
Berwick promoter John Anderson has issued an apology after long delays caused Saturday’s match against Redcar to be abandoned after 10 races.
He said: “The circumstances were truly exceptional, but we are aware we had to ask spectators to wait an undue length of time – it was 67 minutes - before resuming racing after heat six.
“For this, we fully and deeply apologise.”
For a match report from tonight’s meeting, visit http://ift.tt/1md60Qe from around 11pm.
Read Martin Neal’s In The Pits blog at speedwayblog.gazettelive.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment