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Suddenly the
Witches are struggling to make an impact on the season after the
early season optimism that surrounded the club at the start of the
Speedway season.
The team are making
flying starts to meetings as seen against Wolves in the KO cup at
Foxhall, against Coventry at Brandon and then again against Swindon
in the live Sky meeting, but come to the second half of the match
the team seems to fall off their broomsticks. Against Wolves the
team had opened up a big 12 point lead but from heat 10 onwards
Ipswich scored only 17 more points, this has got worse in a week.
The Witches totalled only 10 more points from the final heats
against Coventry and only 11 more against Swindon, when the scores
are close a greater return is essential.
The team need to
stop the run of 5-1’s that are going against the team, in the final
6 heats of these meetings, 7 maximums have been scored against the
club and only one heat advantage has gone for the team and this came
in the cup match against Wolverhampton. You feel if only the team
could keep going through to the end we would be seeing our team in
the next round of the cup and sitting pretty in the league instead
of currently the bottom place that the team occupy and dumped out of
the cup in this early stage of the season. Something will need to be
done to rectify this before it becomes a habit rather than the
annoyance that it currently is. At the back of the riders minds they
will be aware of the fact that they are weak in the second half of a
match and this puts pressure on the riders before the meeting has
already started, they may well and try to over compensate for this
in the first half of a match, riders may well start taking risks
that they normally wouldn’t take to try and get a bigger advantage
before the dreaded heat 10.
In heat 11 against
Swindon Ipswich were on for a 5-1 when Kroner fell and ended up
losing the heat 2-4, this played a huge part in the final score and
a important part of the meeting as a whole. If Kroner had managed to
stay on his bike we would have seen the lead extended from three to
seven, but as a result Swindon were back to within one point and the
momentum was well and truly with the visitors. It's going to
be tough for the Witches now for the rest of the season, teams will
have seen Swindon come to Foxhall and get a win, which no one
expected, and they will be confident of turning Ipswich.
The next home
meeting is Eastbourne, already we have seen Eastbourne win at
Coventry and with Nicholls in their team it will be a very tough
fixture. The team need to try and reverse the tide and dispel the
mood of gloom that is starting to set in amongst some of the fans.
Joel Parsons was a
rider who impressed for Swindon. He impressed me when he was riding
for Sheffield at Loomer Road earlier in April, scoring 8+4 and
looking quick round the track, and when I saw he was in to guest for
Swindon I feared that he may score a few points. He adapts quickly
to different tracks and proved in his guest appearance for the
Robins that he is a solid rider. He may not be lighting up the
Premier league at the moment but scores vital points for his team.
It is well and truly back to earth with a bump for Ipswich after the
hype in March, but the team is not being hammered which is
encouraging and that first league win will be just round the corner.
NB: Isaac is not
officially connected to the Promotion at Ipswich Speedway and
therefore his views are entirely independent of the Promotion.
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