Peterborough = 57 Arena Essex = 37 KO Cup Second Leg � Thursday 6th April 2006
Arena Essex win on aggregate 96-92
Panthers crashed out of the Ko cup as they just failed to make up a 24 point deficit from the first leg. On a tricky and heavy circuit it was obvious from the start that the visitors were unhappy and so it proved with the expected complaints coming after they lost Paul Hurry in a second heat crash.
Hans Andersen made light of the conditions to get very close to the track record in heat 1, but with Ulrich Ostergaard struggling at the back it was a shared start.
Arena�s Lukasz Romanek then made a mistake on the first bend to send his team mate Hurry into the fence along with Ostergaard and although Ostergaard quickly got up, it was clear from early on that Hurry was hurt and he was withdrawn from the meeting at that point with ligament damage to his leg.
A short interval then materialised whilst some more work was done on the track and Hurry was taken to hospital.
When action resumed Panthers quickly set about the visitors and after 4 heats led 18-5, Scott Nicholls guesting for flu victim Andreas Jonsson then came in as a tactical ride and with ex panther Henning Bager proceeded to serious damage that lead with a 7-2 heat win.
From that point Panthers struggled to increase the gap between the sides and with eleven heats gone Panthers led by just 10.
There chance to claw back Arena�a lead seemed to have gone, but Jesper Jensen and Ostergaard both made the start in heat 12 and there maximum win seemed to spur Ryan Sullivan and Andersen to repeat the dose in heat 13 over Nicholls.
Suddenly the gate had been opened and it looked like the tie was going to go to a last heat decider. Arena captain Steve Johnston ended that hope with a win over Niels Kristian Iversen in heat 14 to cement their place in the next round and although Sullivan celebrated his return to form with a full maximum in heat 15, the resulting 4-2 to Panthers gave them a 20 point win on the night.
This was however a good win on the night by Panthers, who are now showing that it�s going to take a good performance by a visiting team to lower there colours again, especially now Sullivan seems to have found his form. They just need now to solve the second string problem to make the team more solid.
In reality this tie was always going to be mission impossible unless every member of the team hit form on the night, and not everyone looked at home with the track conditions. But the bottom line is Panthers lost this Ko cup tie because of their poor showing at Arena in the first leg.
Peterborough = 57 (92) 1) Hans Andersen � 3, 3, 2, 2�, 1 = 11+1 2) Tomasz Bajerski � Rider Replacement 3) Jesper B Jensen � 2�, 2, 3, 1, 3 = 11+1 4) Niels K Iversen � 3, 0, 3, 2 = 8 5) Ryan Sullivan � 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 = 15 6) Richard Hall � 2�, 1, 0 � 3+1 7) Ulrich Ostergaard � 0, 3, 2�, 0, 1, 2�, 1� = 9+3 8 Jon Armstrong � R = 0
