LEICESTER’S winning run was brought to a shuddering halt as they went down 56-34 at Glasgow on Friday.
The Watling JCB Lions had won their previous nine Championship fixtures, including five on the road, but they were never able to land a challenging blow at Ashfield against an impressive home side.
The hosts’ performance was especially noteworthy due to the fact that they lost No.1 Craig Cook in a first-race smash, yet they still recorded a comfortable victory.
It was an unfortunate opening to the meeting, with Lions’ Nick Morris seemingly set for a victory in Heat 1 until he shed a chain, which gave Cook no chance to avoid him and led to both riders coming to grief.
Cook was withdrawn from the meeting but his team-mates took the meeting away from the Lions with advantages in each of the first five races, including a last lap move from Benjamin Basso to pass Richie Worrall in Heat 3 – and the Dane then repeated the feat on Morris next time out in Heat 5.
That meant the Lions were already 22-8 down before skipper Kyle Howarth put them on the board with a win in Heat 6, and he then doubled up as a tactical substitute in Heat 7 although Tom Brennan got ahead to Worrall to limit Leicester to a 4-2.
And any thoughts of a comeback were extinguished when Broc Nicol and Connor Bailey relegated Dan Thompson to third place for a 5-1 in Heat 8, whilst Basso and Ulrich Ostergaard carded a 4-2 in the next.
Worrall notched a race win in Heat 10 with rain threatening, and Morris held off the spectacular Basso to take Heat 13 – but Basso and Danyon Hume raced to a maximum over the Thompson twins in the penultimate heat.
Lions trimmed the arrears with a 4-2 in the last from Howarth and Worrall, split by Brennan, but there were no complaints with the overall result.
Boss Stewart Dickson said: “Our winning run came to an abrupt end, and there’s not really a lot to say other than we were well beaten and now we need to dust ourselves down and go on another run.
“Glasgow were by far the better team on the night, and we were pretty much second best for the whole meeting.
“We send our best wishes to Craig Cook, because that was a terrible accident and Nick was also affected by it as well, both from an injury angle and from a personal point of view.
“But that said, take nothing away from Glasgow. I knew before we went up there that this was going to be a tough one, and I always felt their reserves could be key.
“We looked a very lopsided team tonight, and that’s a bit of a concern as it’s happened on the track of one of our rivals.
“I don’t want to go overboard on it, but I do analyse things and Glasgow are a top team, we could find ourselves having to come back here, and they’ll be tough to beat over two legs.
“Collectively as a team we’re going to have to find ways of getting bigger scores on certain tracks, but we do have the opportunity to start on another winning run on Saturday, and we’ll be looking to take that.”
CHAMPIONSHIP
GLASGOW 56: Benjamin Basso 13+1, Tom Brennan 11+1, Ulrich Ostergaard 10, Broc Nicol 9+1, Connor Bailey 5+3, Danyon Hume 5+1, Craig Cook 3
LEICESTER 34: Kyle Howarth 13, Richie Worrall 9, Nick Morris 6, Connor Mountain 3+1, Dan Thompson 2, Connor Coles 1, Joe Thompson 0
Championship points: Glasgow 3 Leicester 0
