Peterborough Panthers 62 – Coventry Bees 32 Thursday 25th May 2006 – Elite League A Aggregate Bonus Point - Panthers win 106 – Coventry 80
Panthers hit 60 plus points for the second time of the season with an emphatic demolition of the current Elite League champions, taking the match points and the aggregate bonus point.
They took full advantage of the Bee’s problems on the night and never once took the foot of the gas as Jesper B Jensen and Ryan Sullivan top scored with paid 32 between them.
But it was a solid team score which really impressed, for which the lowest score from the Panthers team sheet being 6 paid 8 from Richard Hall, his best score to date.
Hans Andersen seemed to have heat 1 in the bag until hitting a sticky patch on the final bend, but although Coventry’s captain and no 1 Scott Nicholls sped through to take advantage and take the heat 4-2, they soon found themselves trailing As Panthers took maximums in the next 3 heats.
Oliver Allen took advantage of a better gate, courtesy of a tapes offence by Jason King by storming away in heat 2, but Ulrich Ostergaard and Hall stormed by on the back straight top register a rare and very welcome maximum. Jensen & Niels K Iversen repeated the score in a rerun heat 3 after Billy Janniro had come to grief in the first attempt, and Ostergaard & Ryan Sullivan made it 3 maximums out of 3 with another full score in heat 4, although Chris Harris would have ruined that had he not blown his engine up on the last lap.
Jensen easily won heat 5, with interest centred on Iversen and his attempts to get past Morten Risager, in the event he just failed but he did keep Nicholls at the back. More drama followed in heat 6 as Harris alarmingly spilled when he hit the same patch of dirt that spoiled Andersen’s ride in heat 1, his team mate Jason King despite laying his bike down was unable to miss a prostate Harris and it looked a serious crash. Thankfully Harris was able to walk away after treatment from what was rapidly becoming not one of his better nights. An easy maximum in the rerun gave Panthers a 26-10 lead and everyone was awaiting the obvious tacticals.
Rory Schlein took the first in heat 7, but never got near Sullivan and with Hall third points were shared, Panthers then effectively killed off the Bee’s challenge with two further maximums in heats 8 and 9. Firstly through Jensen & it’s great to be back Ostergaard in 8 and the usual Iversen and Jensen road show in heat 9.
Schlein & Billy Janniro then surprised everyone by jetting away in heat 10, Andersen eventually got by Janniro but was unable to catch Schlein, and Coventry built on that with another heat advantage in heat 11, as Tactical ride Nicholls & Risager followed home Sullivan, but that was as far as it went.
Schlein ruined Jensen’s maximum by overtaking him and winning heat 12, but Sullivan & Andersen made it look very easy with a comfortable maximum over the Coventry big guns in heat 13. Another 4-2 in 14 from Iversen & Hall stretched the lead even further, but Sullivan’s first corner in heat 15 to go from last to first was pure class and although it took a few seconds for Jensen to shake off Nicholls, the final maximum was a fitting end to the match.
Andersen was apparently on alternative machinery having had problems bringing his usual Alwalton engines over, but still managed a very respectable paid 10, but just 3 last places from 30 starts explains the home team’s dominance. It was also pleasing to see Ostergaard back with another good return and with Sullivan & Jensen switching positions for the next meeting due to the new green sheets; it will be interesting to see what difference this will make to the results.
The only downer on the night was the news that Piotr Swiderski will miss matches due to a wrist injury and this now leaves the management with another space to fill for the next month.
