Somerset Rebels 67 Ipswich Witches 27

Ipswich Witches League Cup hopes were well and truly extinguished after a hapless performance at Somerset on Friday night.

It was one of the heaviest defeats the Witches have suffered since dropping into the Premier League and to add to the embarrassment, they didn’t even register one heat winner!

It left Witches promoter Chris Louis fuming.

“That was one of the worst Ipswich performances I have ever seen,” he said.

“I could make all the excuses under the sun, but there are simply none to make.

“We lacked everything, absolutely everything.

“We were outgated and when we were in the race we never rode the right lines, out in the dirt. Basically we lacked bottle when we were out there.

“I didn’t think when I put this team together in January it was that bad.”

Asked whether he was concerned with the team, Louis added: “ On the back of this performance, yes I’m concerned.”

Indeed, from heats eight to 14 the home side rattled up a maximum in every race.

Yet, the Suffolk side went into the meeting knowing the chances of a League Cup semi-final place was in their own hands.

Sadly for the Witches however, Somerset knew the same.

And they were determined to give themselves every chance of grabbing such a semi-final place with a completely dominant performance.

The Witches were missing Morten Risager (Danish semi-final duty) and Adam Ellis (riding for Lakeside) and it showed.

While the Witches shared the first race, that proved to be about as good as it was going to get all night as a succession of 5-1 maximums to the home side meant Ipswich No.1 Richie Worrall was out for a tactical ride at the very earliest possible opportunity, heat five.

A shared heat in that race stemmed the flow for a Witches side who have never actually won at the fast Oak Tree Arena in seven previous attempts, and were certainly not going to last night.

Rohan Tungate and Schramm, who was riding in place of Ellis, shared heat six and when Tungate, this time on a tactical ride, and Cameron Heeps grabbed a heat advantage in the next, the Witches, although 10 points down appeared to have stemmed the tide.

What happened next however was unbelievable as Somerset rattled off no less than seven straight 5-1 maximums to leave the Witches dead and buried and not only out of the meeting, but out of the League Cup too – and all by heat 10.

Both Tungate and Worrall hit the deck in heat 13 with the latter excluded from the re-run. It was a painful end to a painful night.

Scorers:

Somerset: N Morris 15, C Wright 5+1, B Kurtz 10+2, P Aspgren 9+1, O Allen 11+1, T Kurtz 7+2, P Starke 10+3

Ipswich: R Worrall 6+1, G Manzares 4, R/R, C Heeps 3+1, R Tungate 10, C Schramm 1+1 R Hawkins 2.

Heat details

1 Morris, Manzares, Worrall, Wright 57.4 3-3

2 Starke, T Kurtz, Hawkins, Schramm 57.5 8-4

3 Aspgren, B Kurtz, Manzares, Heeps 57.8 13-5

4 Allen, Starke, Tungate, Hawkins 57.8 18-6

5 B Kurtz, Worrall* Aspgren, Manzares 57.5 22-10

6 Morris, Tungate, Schramm, Wright 58.4 25-13

7 Allen, Tungate*, Heeps, T Kurtz (f/x) 58.7 28-18

8 Wright, Starke, Manzares, Hawkins 58.6 33-19

9 Aspgren, B Kurtz, Tungate, Schramm 58.2 38-20

10 Morris, Wright, Hawkins, Heeps 58.9 43-21

11 Allen, T Kurtz, Worrall, Manzares 58.4 48-22

12 B Kurtz, Starke, Heeps, Schramm 58.2 53-23

13 Morris, Allen Tungate, Worrall (f/x) 58.5 58-24

14 T Kurtz, Aspgren, Heeps, Hawkins 59.1 63-25

15 Morris, Tungate, Starke, Worrall 58.9 67-27

*tac ride, points count double

Somerset 3 pts Ipswich 0 pts

LEAGUE CUP TABLE – SOUTHERN SECTION

P Pts.

Peterborough 7 17

Somerset 8 14

Ipswich 8 13

Plymouth 8 10

Rye House 7 6

Still to race: Rye House v Peterborough, Sunday, May 4