LEICESTER collected their first away league point of the season with a battling effort in a 48-42 defeat at Redcar.
The Watling JCB Lions delivered a much-improved performance on Tuesday’s hammering at Plymouth, and they got their just reward thanks to a 4-2 in the final race from Richie Worrall and Nick Morris.
Worrall put in a tremendous display to top-score with 14 points, including four race wins, and reserve Anders Rowe also impressed with Connor Mountain solid in the No.2 berth.
The Lions did miss unwell skipper Kyle Howarth, and they slipped eight points down early on thanks to a pair of 5-1s from the Lewis Kerr/Kasper Andersen combination in Heats 3 and 5.
But they charged back through a 5-1 of their own from Rowe and Mountain in Heat 8, with the latter getting the better of a strong challenge from Jordan Jenkins.
Redcar rebuilt a ten-point advantage after Heat 10, and there was controversy in the next when Lions No.1 Morris was convinced he had beaten Erik Riss, only for the home man to receive the verdict from the referee.
But the visitors gained a 4-2 from a tactical substitute outing for Worrall in Heat 12 before Morris took out his frustrations in Heat 13 to defeat Charles Wright and Riss and keep the Lions in contention for a league point.
They still needed to eke out a race advantage to achieve it, and they were frustrated by Andersen taking the flag in a shared Heat 14 – but in a terrific last heat, Worrall took the win with Morris working overtime to split Kerr and Riss and secure a vital third place.
Manager Stewart Dickson said: “I’m quite happy to get a point from that, it gets us on the ‘plus’ factor in the league table, and I would say it was a response of some sort from the Plymouth match.
“Anders will probably feel a bit hard done by that he only got four races, because he probably would have got six on another night, but I’d decided to leave the tactical substitute until later, and Richie won that ride.
“In hindsight rider-replacement for Kyle may have worked better but hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I would have taken a point beforehand – although with Kyle it might have been three.
“And it wasn’t the first time we’ve been on the wrong end of a decision at Redcar after the Hans Andersen/Jake Allen one last season. It seems to follow us around at Redcar quite a lot!
“Nick was obviously very upset, he felt he’d got it clearly, so I had to speak to the referee. From my angle it was difficult for me to see, but I can only go with what my rider is telling me – there was no reason for him to react in that way if he didn’t think he'd got it. I know the referee is in line with it, but Nick didn’t even think it was close.
“At least we got a point out of the meeting because I think if we’d come away having lost by eight, we would have been talking about it a lot more.”
CHAMPIONSHIP
REDCAR 48: Lewis Kerr 13, Charles Wright 10, Erik Riss 9+1, Kasper Andersen 8+2, Jordan Jenkins 4, Adam Roynon 3+2, Jason Edwards 1
LEICESTER 42: Richie Worrall 14, Nick Morris 8, Anders Rowe 8, Connor Mountain 5+3, Thomas Jorgensen 4, Dan Thompson 3+2, Joe Thompson 0
Championship points: Redcar 3 Leicester 1
