Speedway: Ipswich return to winning ways against Peterborough
They're chasing fourth place
The Ipswich Witches returned to winning ways with a 54-36 victory over Peterborough on Thursday in the Premiership.
Jason Doyle and Emil Sayfutdinov both registered maximums as the Witches dominated the race wins, and with skipper Danny King also in double figures, the Panthers were limited to just four successes on the night.
The visitors were hampered by the absence of both regular reserves, with Rising Star Jordan Jenkins hurt in a heavy crash at Oxford on Wednesday.
The Witches took full advantage that area with Danyon Hume and Dan Thompson racking up 11 (paid 14) between them.
Ipswich manager Ritchie Hawkins reflects on Thursday’s win:
“I’m obviously happy to win, and to win convincingly. There were lots of positives to take from the meeting. We certainly can’t get carried away with beating Peterborough because they’re struggling - but we can only beat who’s in front of us, and tonight we did a good, solid professional job.
“There aren’t many meetings we go into where we look stronger on paper at reserve, but we did tonight, and we certainly took advantage of that.
"I think there’s been real improvement in Dan over the last few weeks, he had a brilliant performance in the Under-21s where he was so close to winning it and becoming the British Champion, and you can really see his confidence is growing and he’s enjoying being here. He’s done very well again tonight and the improvement meeting on meeting is very pleasing.
“Danyon did well again, and it was obviously good to see Danny riding that well, but we need to see it more consistently. With Erik I think it’s a confidence issue, he was out there practising afterwards which was great to see, and his last two rides were an improvement.
"But he has gone backwards from where he was a few weeks ago – when he first came back, he was showing good signs that he was going to kick on but he’s kind of gone the other way, and we need that No.4 position to be doing well, so that’s something we need to work on.
“We have ten days off now and then we have three away meetings, and that’s when we’re going to need to up our game and perform in them.
"If we can pull off a win at Leicester that will get the ball rolling into the next two meetings. It’s important for us to get into the Knockout Cup final, where we’ve got great lead, and we’ve got a very important trip to King’s Lynn where we need to win.”
The victory means there's little change to the Witches' position in the Premiership with Ipswich moving on to 17 points.
They remain five points behind fourth-placed Sheffield who notched an important 50-40 home win over champions Belle Vue.
Second-bottom King’s Lynn lost at home to in-form Leicester, who have now won eight matches in succession.
The Ipswich Witches travel to Leicester on Monday 31st July to take on the Lions at the Pidcock Motorcycles Arena.