Kent 47 Mildenhall 46

The Fen Tigers returned from Monday’s trip into Kent with only one point to show for their valiant efforts at Central Park.

All six Fen Tigers contributed well and after being ten points in arrears after eight heats bounced back in the second half of the meeting to go down by the smallest of margins 47-46.

Getting out of the starts remains the teams ‘achilles heel’ at the moment as although they only recorded four last places, they only managed to provide the same number of heat winners.

Impressive reserve Tom Bacon got the visitors off to a good start with a second followed by a first in the opening two heats as the sides jostled for an advantage. It took a 5-1 maximum in heat five to separate the sides when Danny Ayres and Aaron Baseby beat Danny Halsey, a second 5-1 in heat eight extended Kent’s lead to ten points.

However team manager Robert Henry gave a tactical ride to Connor Coles and the ex-Kings man responded in perfect fashion with a pillar to post victory and with Bacon tucking into third place the lead was halved.

The following heat was the race of the meeting with Connor Mountain outgating Kent No 1 Ben Morley only for Morley to steam past entering the third bend, but by the time they left the fourth bend Mountain had switched back to take the lead and pull away from his opponent. A similar classy ride in heat 12 saw Mountain record a second heat win and suddenly Kent were only one ahead.

However with Morley and Ayres featuring in the final three races Mildenhall were unable to do better than draw all three heats and missed out by the smallest of margins.

After the meeting Team Manager Robert Henry was pleased with the afternoons work.

He said: “I thought the lads put in a good shift today, and were probably a little unfortunate to miss out on their first away win, a couple of mistakes didn’t help but they are learning all the time and you can see the improvement meeting on meeting.

“We need to be sharper out of the gate for sure, and hopefully with more meetings under their belts that will come, as for me that was the difference between the sides.

“I was highly impressed with the Connor’s and Tom worked hard too for his points. Luke was a little down on himself but as I said to him, this was his first time at Kent and this time last year Connor Mountain was struggling to get round here, now look at him today beating Ben Morley and top scoring for us.”

Scorers: Mildenhall 46 - Dan Halsey 8+1, R/R, Connor Mountain 11+1, Jack Kingston 5+1, Connor Coles 10+2, Tom Bacon 9, Luke Ruddick 3+3.