Newcastle 46 Ipswich Witches 44

Despite leading Newcastle for the majority of the meeting, the Ipswich Witches travelled home from Tyneside last night with just a point for their efforts.

In a Premier League meeting where the advantage swung one way and then another it was all square with just four heats remaining.

Morten Risager and Ritchie Hawkins put the visitors into a slender two point lead in the 12th and Richie Worrall and Rohan Tungate extended this to a four point gap with another 4-2 in the 13th, after Danny King touched the tapes and Ludvig Lindgren was excluded for falling.

The Diamonds pulled a couple back in the penultimate heat and then it all went wrong for the visitors when they conceded a maximum 5-1 advantage in the final heat to lose the meeting by just two points.

Team manager Chris Louis was disappointed saying: “We did well during the meeting and with the exception of a couple of heats early on we were never behind until the end, where with the pressure on we just couldn’t make it count.”

The Suffolk side took the lead as early as heat two, when Hawkins and Adam Ellis combined for a 5-1 to wipe out the Diamonds first heat 4-2 advantage.

Newcastle restored their lead in the next with the Witches turning the tables again when Rohan Tungate and Hawkins recorded a maximum in heat four to take them two ahead.

Another Ipswich maximum in the next took them six points to the good but the home side wouldn’t let them get away, finally levelling things in the ninth with the scores staying that way until the interval, with the Witches unable to make their early advantage after the break count.

Newcastle: King 14, Robson 8, Kerr 13+2, Lindgren 5, Greenwood 1, Chris Mills 5

Ipswich: Worrall 10+1, Manzares 4+1, Risager 7+1, Heeps 6, Tungate 7, Ellis 2+1, Hawkins 8+1

Newcastle 2pts. Ipswich 1pt.

1: King, Worrall, Mills, Manzares 4-2 4-2

2: Hawkins, Ellis, Mills, Greenwood 1-5 5-7

3: Robson, Kerr, Heeps, Risager 5-1 10-8

4: Tungate, Hawkins, Greenwood, Lindgren (ret) 1-5 11-13

5: Worrall, Manzares, Kerr, Robson 1-5 12-18

6: King, Tungate, Mills, Ellis (fell exc) 4-2 16-20

7: Risager, Lindgren, Heeps, Greenwood 2-4 18-24

8: Kerr, Hawkins, Mills, Manzares (exc) 4-2 22-26

9: Robson, Kerr, Tungate, Ellis 5-1 27-27

10: King, Heeps, Risager, Mills 3-3 30-30

11: Lindgren, Manzares, Worrall, Greenwood 3-3 33-33

12: Risager, Robson, Hawkins, Mills (fell ) 2-4 35-37

13: Worrall, King, Tungate Lindgren (fell exc) 2-4 37-41

14: Kerr, Heeps, Mills, Hawkins 4-2 41-43

15 King, Kerr, Worall, Risager 5-1 46-44