Glasgow Buildbase Tigers 47 Andersons Quality Butchers Berwick Bandits 43 (Premier Trophy)

The Berwick Bandits were never behind in an extraordinary Premier Trophy meeting at Glasgow – until the end of the last heat of the night. Unfortunately that meant they lost a highly entertaining meeting by only four points but left Ashfield Stadium with they tails up, proud of a job well done.

But the meeting came at a price with young Greg Blair, who was deputising for the injured Manuel Hauzinger once more fell in his first ride, breaking a thigh. Initially suspected at swift trip to hospital confirmed the worst, and the border’s star of the future will be in surgery over today (Monday).

Berwick took the lead in the opening heat with Rymel beating the top home man, Parker with Franchetti grabbing third from new Tiger Davey in a Bandit’s 2-4. Makovsky and a much improved show from Aarnio say the Berwick pair jet out in front to take a 1-5 over Leverington and Davey once more to extend the Bandits lead to 6-12. Dicken and Ksiezak pulled the four point extension back again in Heat four over a solo Mckinna for this was the race that saw Blair exit the event when he hit the home straight fence to be excluded, and after a significant delay he was shipped off to hospital.

In the re run McKinna could only take the one point leaving the progressive total at 11-13 to Berwick. Heat six was re run too when Magosi was shown a very wide line by Ksiezak and at the second time of asking Parker took the win with the Hungarian taking an excellent second place to level the match 18 a-piece.

Two heats later the match was still tied at 24-24 before Berwick took another two point lead in Heat nine with Magosi taking a well-earned win over Leverington as McKinna held off Davey at the rear in the 2-4 (26-28). Thanks to Rymel and Franchetti seeing off the challenge from Ksiezak and Grajczonek in heat 11, Berwick were yet again six points up with only 4 races to go, and again still six up after a Heat 12 split, but the match was sadly on a slide for the Borderers. Heat 13 was another win for Parker over Rymel in a 4-2 taking the Berwick lead back to four but Glasgow hit hard in the final two races knocking home two critical 5-1, heat 14 notable for the Tigers two new boys doing the business over Magosi and Aarnio.

And that was that, Berwick relinquished the win. Berwick promoter Peter Waite said: “We really put on a top show at Glasgow and pulled in some good points from all quarters but our form just deserted us at the bitter end so we couldn’t claim a deserved win. “Our sincere thanks also go to Greg Blair who is now going to miss a lot of the season with his injury. The lad really rode well for us on Saturday night and I can only say we all wish him a really quick recovery and return to the track.”

Glasgow Buildbase Tigers 47

1. Shane Parker © 2,3,3,3,2* = 13+1
2. Ross Brady – Rider Replacement
3. Trent Leverington 1,1*,3,2,3,3 = 13+1
4. Mitchell Davey R,0,0,3 = 3
5. Robert Ksiezak 2*,1,3,1,1 = 8+1
6. Josh Grajczonek 1*,0,0,2* = 3+2
7. Lee Dicken 2,3,2,0,R = 7

Andersons Quality Butchers Berwick Bandits 43
1. Adrian Rymel © 3,3,3,2,0 = 11
2. Guglielmo Franchetti 1,0,1*,2* = 4+2
3. Michal Makovsky 3,1*,2,2,1 = 9+1
4. Tero Aarnio 2*,2,1*,F = 5+2
5. Greg Blair (g) Fx = 0 (withdrawn – injured)
6. Norbert Magosi ® 3,2,2,3,1*,1 = 12+1
7. Adam McKinna ® 0,1,0,1,0 = 2