Reserves star for Panthers

Peterborough Panthers 55 Poole Pirates 38

Elite League A

PETERBOROUGH made it two wins out of two over the current Elite League Champions with another superb performance at the Showground with this result moving the Panthers up to second place in the table.

Yet again the Panthers reserves played starring roles in this comprehensive victory but that takes nothing away from the rest of the team who all pitched in with solid scores and as owner Rick Frost recently said Its going to take an exceptional performance from a visiting team to go away with anything whilst the Panthers are in this sort of form.

Nevertheless the Pirates took the first and last heats with heat advantages and in heat 9 surprised the home team with an 8-1, but apart from that it was all Panthers as they kept the hammer down all meeting.

Following a Pirates opening heat 1 advantage in which ex Panthers Ales Dryml led everyone home, Panthers quickly made amends with a tapes to flag maximum in the reserves race.

Joe Screen took advantage of a Panthers mix up on the first bend to head heat 3, but Panthers got into their stride with 4-2's in the next two heats courtesy of heat winners Kenneth Hansen and Mads Korneliussen.

Bjarne Pedersen steadied the Pirate ship with a fairly comfortable heat 6 race win but Iversen streaked away to win the 7th with Claus Vissing getting the better of an early duel with Screen to follow his captain home.

Hansen was at it again in heat 8 with another race win over Ales Dryml, but it was Bager who surprised everyone by snatching third place on the line after trailing Hurry for the entire race.

With the Pirates 12 points down Captain Pedersen donned the black and white helmet cover and easily won the 9th but it was reserve Tomasz Piszcz that took the plaudits as he resisted all efforts of the Panthers pairing to follow his captain home for a match changing 8-1.

If this rattled the Panthers it didn't show, as Bager stormed away from gate 1 to lead with Bjerre happy to slot in behind him, Iversen increased the Panthers advantage back to 11 points with a classy win over Poole's new no 1 Chris Holder in heat 11 and Kenneth Hansen duly completed his first ever Elite League maximum with another superb gate and first corner over Joe Screen which was rather timely as partner Mads Korneliussen's machine died on the starting line.

Heat 13 was another heat that was going to play a big part in deciding whether the Panthers were going to win in style or be pegged back again with Bjerre and Iversen quickly settling that with lively gating and determined first corners.

Poole team manager Neil Middleditch elected to throw his final dice with the introduction of Daniel Davidsson as a tactical ride in heat 14, he was last away from the tapes as partner Tomasz Piszcz ran out of room on the first corner and piled into the air fence, and didn't seem to keen to compete in the rerun getting himself excluded under the 2 minute rule.

Nevertheless he was reinstated off a 15 meter handicap after a fair delay with Piszcz excluded but never even got close to doubling his points, settling for third his only point of the night, as Panthers wrapped up the match and points with their 5th maximum of the evening.

Chris Holder gained some revenge for a quiet night by his standards with an accomplished win in heat 15 over Iversen, whilst Pedersen seemed content to just shut out Bjerre for third place.

Kenneth Hansen deservedly got the man of the match award from match sponsor Andy Millar, while yet again the Panthers reserves totalled over 20 points between them.

Team manager Trevor Swales said: “The team rode exceptionally well again tonight and we had some very fast times, they all scored good points and what can you say about our reserves, paid 22 yet again, but the reserve race times are as quick as the heat leaders.

Kenneth Hansen didn't go in heat 15 because I wanted him to keep his first maximum, he fully deserved it and we must have the best reserves in the league at this moment in time”.