Plymouth’s Coliseum Stadium was the venue for a 3-team speedway tournament last night (Tuesday) which saw the Warriors in action for the first time in 2020.
It took a magical pass on the final bend of the final heat from Eastbourne’s Great Britain Under 21 international Tom Brennan to pip Plymouth’s Henry Atkins and grab the crucial extra point that propelled the Sussex side to the top of the leader board, just a single point in front of the hard-working Wightlink Warriors.
Considering this was the first official fixture since this time last year for many of the riders, all 3 teams put on some great action for a COVID-19 restricted crowd limited to 400, plus those who watched a live stream of the meeting online.
All 3 teams can point to elements of bad luck with young Warrior Chad Wirtzfeld, in particular, encountering all sorts of problems. New Warrior Tom Woolley showed some impressive gating skills and battled hard for little real reward whilst the bulk of the scoring was done by returnee Connor Coles who looked fast and aggressive and number one Ben Morley who turned in another silky performance to top score with 13.
After the main event, the 4 top scorers contested a single heat ‘Dash For Cash’ and sadly Morley took a very heavy fall on a congested first bend of this race. He limped back to the bits reporting a painful dead leg but fortunately nothing worse.
Warriors’ co-promoter Barry Bishop said:
“Congratulations to Eastbourne on their win and congratulations to the Plymouth club for the massive amount of work that they have done getting their stadium Covid compliant.
“It’s been fantastic having live speedway back and I’m incredibly proud of all four Warriors as well Connor King who was guesting for the Eagles tonight. Everyone put on a fine showing and as the track evolved the racing got better and better. The sport of speedway was the real winner tonight.”
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Eastbourne 31 | Isle of Wight 30 | Plymouth 28
Eastbourne: Tom Brennan 10, Jake Knight 9+2, Jason Edwards 10, Connor King 2+2.
Isle of Wight: Ben Morley 13, Tom Woolley 4, Connor Coles 11+1, Chad Wirtzfeld 2.
Plymouth: Alfie Bowtell 12, Richard Andrews 4+1, Henry Atkins 11, Arran Butcher 1, Kris Andrews 0.
Good effort by the Wightlink Warriors. Hope to see this back on the Island soon.