Elite League Combination .
Ipswich 69 : Charlie Rumbold 19 , Richard Fellgett 15 , Daniel Knights 15 , Matthew Hill 9, Terry Gilbert-Rolfe 6, Lauren Jacobs 5, Fraser Harris 2 .
Horspath 60 : Simon Munden 15 , Zac Payne 12, Mike Burgess 11, Richard Harrison 9, Lee Clarke 8, Wayne Clarke 5 .
Referee : Bill Brooke (Suffolk ) .
The two heavyweights of this season’s combination league came head to head for the first time, and having suffered their first defeat last time out at Poole Ipswich were looking to set the record straight and lower Horspath’s colours and put themselves back into title contention.
If the first team match was one sided this wasn’t the case between these evenly matched sides. Horspath knew a win for them would put daylight between themselves and their nearest rivals and went for experience in the shape of Munden , Burgess and Harrison. The home team kept to their young and up and coming riders and handed an overdue debut to Daniel Knights, hopefully we will see Dan a few more times from now to the end of the season .
As predicted this was always going to be a tight affair and so it turned out to be with first one side taking a slight advantage them only to see it go the other way, with all heats contested if their lives depended on the result of that heat. So close was the match that the two teams were locked together 55-all after eleven heats, and with two heats left the match was turned on its head . Hill / Jacobs faced a tough task in Payne /Clarke , when all the real drama started … with firstly Hill leading the race Payne went for the inside lane but never seemed to be fully there and only drove into the rear wheel of Hill causing him to lose balance which in turn sent Payne crashing to floor with a glaring look over at the referee looking for a leg, by this time Jacobs had passed the prostrate Horspath rider to cross the line giving the Ipswich team a 7-3 outcome and take them into the last heat four points up. The away following were clearly upset by this decision .
Ipswich knew only to well that it wasn’t over with one more heat to come and know only too well about last heat deciders having lost out at Poole only weeks earlier. Ipswich sent out Rumbold and Fellgett to face Munden and Payne , with young Payne still visiably upset over the last heat he once again was on the end of referee Bill Brooke decision to exclude him when he forced Rumbold on to the centre green and in doing so gave Ipswich’s pairing a comfortable 7-2 over Munden and take the points for the home team to secure the match 69-60.
The result caused a few heated words from the away pits area who in the words of one rider felt they had been cheated out of a result ,so with both teams now having lost once this season it sets it up for a corker in Horspath next month .