Thanks to Bryn for this update from last night’s match. Ed
Having walked away with the league title this year, our opponents were expected to record a comfortable first leg win around their home circuit in Wolverhampton last night and that they did.
However it must be said that the Wightlink Islanders gave them quite a fright in the early stages of last night’s encounter despite us going into the meeting missing four of our current seven man side, namely Brendan Johnson, Darryl Ritchings, Adam Ellis and Dan Stoneman.
Indeed our somewhat weakened side amazingly contrived to make some members of the home camp break out into a bit of a cold sweat by leading by five points after the first three races of fifteen, the scoreline being 11-6 in our favour at that stage.
Heathens hit back
Unfortunately for us the Heathens managed to make light of that, hitting back and hitting back hard by taking three successive maximum 5-1 advantages in heats 4, 5 and 6 with our No.1 Steve Worrall unluckily falling whilst challenging in the middle one of those.
The home side were now in charge and, as everyone had predicted prior to the match, went onto establish a very big lead around their mere 264 metre circuit to take into the return leg at Smallbrook which, in contrast, is 385 metres in length.
No match for the full strength Dudley side
Speaking after last night’s match our club’s spokesperson said,
“Our injury hit side rode their hearts out which we knew they would do, but were no match unfortunately for the full strength Dudley side who really have been the top team in this year’s National League.”
Final score
Dudley Heathens 58 Wightlink Islanders 33
NL KOC FINAL – 1st leg
Tuesday October 29
Scorers
Dudley: Ashley Morris 14+1, Paul Starke 11+1, Lewis Blackbird 10+1, Dan Greenwood 9+2, Max Clegg 5, Gareth Isherwood 4.
Wightlink Islanders: Steve Worrall 10, Tom Perry 8+1, Lee Payne 5+2, Ben Hopwood 4, Chris Widman 4, Reece Downes 2+1.
Image: Lee Jordan under CC BY 2.0
