Rebels slip up as stars shine

After a promising start the ‘Cases’ Rebels found themselves surrendering an eight point advantage as King’s Lynn hit back in Norfolk to not only register a 49-41 victory, but also cause the Rebels to lose pole position in the SGB Premiership League table on Monday night, much to the disappointment of team manager Garry May.

“To start like we did and then to come away with nothing is very hard to swallow. That is not to say that King’s Lynn didn’t deserve the win as they hit back at us very strongly, but we had a couple of passengers tonight and you can’t afford that in this league. I just hope we don’t look back at this meeting as the ‘one that got away’.

With Lynn’s skipper Robert Lambert storming to a five ride maximum, the Rebels’ stand-in captain, Richard Lawson, struggled to get amongst the points in each of his three rides. Guest for the night Max Fricke, deputising for injured number one Jason Doyle, battled hard for his paid 9 return whilst Jack Holder had to recover from a 15 metre handicap in his first race, on his way to a paid 11 return for the night.

Reserves Jake Allen and Nico Covatti easily won the battle of the basement berths but with Ty Proctor and Thomas Jorgensen ably backing up Lambert’s unbeaten performance, victory prevailed for the Stars banking a 5-1 in the last heat to send the Rebels home pointless, on a night that saw Swindon pick up three home points against Wolverhampton to overhaul the Rebels at the top of the table.

The two leading clubs meet at the Oak Tree Arena on Wednesday night, just a point separating them although the Rebels have three matches in hand on their Wiltshire rivals. Once again Somerset will be without the services of injured Jason Doyle and Rory Schlein will cover.

Scorers:

King’s Lynn – 49: R. Lambert 15 (3,3,3,3,3), T. Jorgensen 10+2 (2′,3,XD,3,2′), T. Proctor 10+1 (3,2′,3,2), N. Iversen 7 (1,3,3,R), M. Palm-Toft 4 (0,0,3,1), S. Lambert 3+1 (1,2′,0,0,0), K. Newman 0 (0,0,0)

SOMERSET – 41: J. Holder 10+1 (1′,2,2,3,2,0), N. Covatti 9+1 (2′,2,2,1,2), M. Fricke 8+1 (3,1,2,1′,1), J. Allen 6+3 (3,1′,1′,1′), A. Summers 4 (1,1,2), B. Wilson-Dean 4+3 (2′,0,1′,1′), R. Lawson 0 (0,0,0)