By the end of four races, the home ‘Raiders’ side had won 50-40, thus preventing the Islanders from even picking up the solitary point awarded to away sides losing by six points or less and a clearly unhappy Chris Hunt was at a loss to explain what he had just seen.
“We really should have won the match or at least restricted the Raiders’ winning margin to six points or less to pick up a point,” he said, “but to do neither and ending up beaten by ten points is unbelievable!
“We’re not at all happy as you can imagine and I just hope today hasn’t cost us a place in the playoffs as fifth placed Scunthorpe are just two points behind us and we’ve both got two matches left.
“Ours are both away – at league leaders Dudley this Tuesday (i.e. tomorrow) and at King’s Lynn on September 19 whilst Scunthorpe have to meet Rye House both at home and away.
“It’s going to be an anxious time ahead and it shouldn’t have been and wouldn’t have been if we’d have won here today, but that’s speedway they tell me – and yes it can be cruel at times!”
Falls by Baseby and Starke
The nailbiting situation now confronting the Wightlink Islanders was brought about by Rye House surprising everybody by collecting maximum points in three of the last four heats with both Mark Baseby and Paul Starke suffering falls in the process but both were unhurt.
Starke was top man for the Islanders taking his full quota of seven rides from the reserve berth to top score with 12 (paid 13) points with next best being Ben Hopwood with a lively 8 (paid 10) from his five outings.
Final score: Rye House 50 IOW 40 (National League – Sept 1st)
Islanders scorers: Paul Starke 12+1, Ben Hopwood 8+2, Aaron Baseby 6+1, Danny Warwick 6+1, Mark Baseby 3+1, Danny Stoneman 3+1, Steve Jones 2.
No home action tonight
A reminder that there’s no home action for the Wightlink Islanders tonight as they face the daunting task of travelling to Wolverhampton and attempting to become the first team to defeat this year’s runaway league leaders, the Dudley Heathens, on their own circuit – and they’ve only lost once on their travels! A tough task indeed BUT, you never know!
The next action at Smallbrook is in a week (11th September), that being the National Trophy match against Stoke, start time 7.30pm.
“Go win it for Chris” is the cry
Not only is there enough pressure on the Wightlink Islanders as they attempt to end league leader’s Dudley Heathens unbeaten 2012 home record at Monmore Green tomorrow, but the plea is, “GO WIN IT FOR CHRIS!”
That ‘Chris’ is joint team boss Chris Hunt who misses the trip as he’s into hospital to have his long awaited knee repair operation so go on Wightlink Islanders do just that eh – go win it for Chris!
