Despite pre-match predictions from the Plymouth promotion that the Devils would take away the league points from the Eddie Wright Raceway it was the Saints who defeated their old enemy by a scoreline of 51-39 to complete their league campaign with a 100% record at home. 

The result now means the Saints will have to wait until other teams complete their league campaigns to see if they qualify for the end-of-season league championship playoffs.

The meetings started with the Saints’ new signing James Birkinshaw sliding off on just the second corner.  It was an inauspicious start for the former Birmingham Brummie and Sheffield Tiger and it duly led to a 4-2 heat win for the Devils.  Gary Irving and Adam Wrathall immediately levelled things up in heat 2.  The Devils’ Tom Brown won heat 3 but it was the Saints’ skipper, Byron Bekker, and Wrathall that broke the deadlock in heat 4 with a 4-2 over Seemond Stephens and Paul Starke. 

Scott Richardson maintained the two point lead with an impressive win over the Devils’ number one Mark Simmonds before Stephens kept Ben Hopwood and Birkinshaw at bay in heat 6.  Heat 7 produced a fantastic ride from Gary Irving who passed Tom Brown on turn four and with Bekker filling third place the Saints had doubled their led to four.  Afterwards Irving agreed that the ride was perhaps the best of his career to date.

Plymouth suffered some bad luck when Kyle Hughes suffered a puncture in heat 8 which relegated him to second before four more drawn heats left the scores at 38-34 in the Saints’ favour with three races to go.  With Simmonds and Stephens programmed in to heat 13 Plymouth will have fancied their chances of evening things up but Bekker and Birkinshaw had other thoughts as they team rode the Devils pair out for four laps.  It all but secured victory for the Saints but that was confirmed when the Devils, for some reason, could only produce one rider for the penultimate heat and the Saints romped to another 5-1.  At one point after Starke was excluded from heat 14 for exceeding the time allowance it looked like the Devils’ Team Manager, Mike Bowden, tried to introduce Tom Brown as a tactical substitution from the fifteen-metre mark but quite correctly that move was vetoed. 

Heat 15 saw Brown’s colours lowered for the second time with Birkinshaw winning the race whilst Scott Richardson, as in heat 9, just failing to catch Stephens.  It meant the Saints had defeated the Devils for the twelfth time in their last fourteen meetings and for Scunthorpe fans there are few things sweeter.

After the meeting a relieved Gary Irving said “I thought it was going to be a tough match and it was a tough match.  I was really up for it and just really wanted to beat them.  I knew it was going to be hard and we had to win it to give ourselves a chance of going into the playoffs.  It was big meeting for everyone.  I’m just please we managed to pull it off”

The Saints are next in action at the Eddie Wright Raceway in the semi-final of Knockout Cup against Boston on Friday 19th September (start time 7.30pm).   Before then the Premier League Scorpions are in action at the EWR on each of the three Fridays before then with Stoke the first visitors this coming Friday, 29th August (start time 7.30pm).

Scunthorpe 51
James Birkinshaw 8+2 (5 rides), Ben Hopwood 8+1 (4), Jonathan Bethell 4+2 (4), Scott Richardson 10 (5), Byron Bekker 10 (4), Gary Irving 8+1 (4), Adam Wrathall 3+1 (4)

Plymouth 39
Mark Simmonds 7+1 (4 rides), Kyle Hughes 6+1 (4), Tom Brown 13 (5), Jamie White-Williams 1 (3), Seemond Stephens 9+1 (5), Jaimie Pickard 0 (4), Paul Starke 3+1 (4)