Premier League  Ipswich v Wednesfield

Ipswich  69
Josh Brooke 8, Ashley Hill 12 ,Josh Colby 10, George Solomon 11, Jordan Stant 7 , Dan Chambers 13 , Barry Copping 5 , Lewis Roberts 3.

Wednesfield   108
Matt Beharrell 18 , Chris Jewkes 18, Dylan Ratcliffe 16, Terry Norman 11, Lee Aris 16 , Ben Higham 12 , Mark Griffiths 10, Luke Draisey 7 .

Referee  Mike Knowles (Sheffield ) .

Ipswich welcomed their midland opponents, former British team champions Wednesfield, to a sunny Whitton raceway for their Premier league encounter. Missing several first teamers with holidays illness and non-availability’s it was always going to be an up hill task to contain their high flying opponents with the home team having to call on three combination members to make up the team. This was a first appearance of the season for Josh Colby after his recent trip to Poland for the young lions tour.

So it proved straight from the off with the visitors claiming a 7-3 in the first heat though the homes team responded with a 6-4 from Solmon/Colby combination it was to be the home team’s only heat advantage in the first half with Wednesfield dominating racking up six heat wins to lead the Suffolk outfit 55-32 at the break .

The second half started well for the home team with two shared heats and Solmon/Colby recording their second 6-4 win ,but it was to be short lived with Wednesfield re-grouping winning five of the last six heats to come out comfortable winners by 69 – 108 .

The match was well refereed by Mike Knowles from Sheffield who kept the match going at a good tempo with only a couple of tape exclusions to call. The home team kept theirs heads up even though they were always going up against a good compact team in Wednesfield. Good performances from Hill, Colby and Solomon will set them in good stead for the rest of the season to come, with a trip to champions Horspath and two home matches with Poole and Sheffield .

Premier Combination

Ipswich 74+17
Matt Hill 11 , Will Clark 16, Richard Fellgett 16 , Lauren Jacobs 11 , Fraser Harris 6 , Charlie Rumbold 14 .

Wendnesfield  55
Luke Draisey 15 , Harry Evriss 5 , Sam Par 7 , Troy Allen 13 , Mark Griffiths 10 , Aaron O’Brien 5 .

The home team were slightly weakened for their encounter with Wednesfield with three riders stepping up into the first team the afternoon so this gave Fraser Harris his debut in the combination league.  Wednesfield gave away seventeen penalty points, but the team wanted to improve from their last outing at Leicester when they didn’t do themselves justice with a poor performance.

The young Ipswich team rode with great maturity with sensible team racing and were always in control of their opponents. After nine heats Ipswich lead by seven points and then punished their midland rivals reeling off four heats wins to secure the match 74 –  55 without their penalty points, leaving the final score 91 – 55 .

Man of the match was Will Clark, all in all a great all-round team effort .

Referee . Dave Hill (Ipswich ) .