Despite the horrendous weather earlier in the day, the Wightlink Islanders were back in action at the Wave 105 Smallbrook Stadium last night when they entertained the Sheffield Tigers in the first leg of their Young Shield quarter final clash.

And they established a more than healthy 21 points lead to take with them to the Owlerton stadium tomorrow (Thursday) thanks to a 57-36 win last night, a lead that co-promoter Dave Pavitt is very confident that skipper Jason Bunyan and his men can successfully defend over the course of the 15 heats in the second leg to see the Wightlink Islanders through to the competition's semi-finals.

"We know Sheffield will come at us with all guns blazing tomorrow," he said, "but the pressure is very much on them before a wheel is turned tomorrow for we have the points in the bag following an excellent display last night.

They have to beat us by 22 points or more whereas we don't even have to go there looking to win given the fact that a 20 point defeat will still do as far as we are concerned.

"But we are not going there looking at things that way for we're fully focussed and will be looking to slam home heat advantages early in proceedings and try to tie matters up as early as possible in the match and, who knows, actually win tomorrow's second leg as well."

With very heavy rain falling during the day at times, and with the circuit becoming saturated, there were indeed doubts at some stages yesterday that the first leg last night would be able to go ahead.

Thankfully though the rain stopped and whilst racing conditions were far from ideal, referee Dave Robinson decreed that the match would go ahead and it has to be said that both sides deserve praise for the racing they provided to all those who attended the meeting including the match sponsors Romahome, the specialist motorhome manufacturers based in Cowes.

In the space of the opening five heats, the Wightlink Islanders established a ten points advantage leading by 20 points to 10 and that would have been an even bigger advantage but for Cory Gathercole getting caught out by track conditions in the opening heat and taking a fall although, thankfully, he escaped with only his pride injured.

To their credit Sheffield never gave up the fight and reduced the Islanders lead to seven points by taking a maximum heat win in heat 7 but that was the last occasion they achieved any such success and the islanders gradually pulled further and further ahead as the match drew towards it's conclusion.

Sipper Jason Bunyan led the way by remaining unbeaten by a Tiger throughout the match but the Romahome man of the match award went, much to the fans delight, to young Australian reserve Richard Sweetman for his fine showing in scoring nine (paid ten) from his five rides.

Final Score and scorers from last night:

Wightlink Islanders 57 Sheffield Tigers 36
(Young Shield quarter-final, 1st leg)

WIGHTLINK ISLANDERS scorers (1 to 7 in racing order, no of rides in brackets): : Jason Bunyan 13+2 (5), Cory Gathercole 7 (4), Glen Phillips 5+4 (4), Paul Fry 10 (4), Krzysztof Stojanowski 10 (5), Andrew Bargh 3+1 (3), Richard Sweetman 9+1 (5)

Sheffield scorers (1 to 7 in racing order, no of rides in brackets): Ricky Ashworth (rider replacement *), Joel Parsons 4+1 (5), Andre Compton 14 (6) Paul Cooper 8+1 (6), Ben Wilson 8+1 (6), David Speight 0 (3), Lee Smethills 2 (4), Ben Hopwood (No.8) did not ride.

Note: * with Ricky Ashworth out injured, Sheffield operated the rider replacement facility to cover for his absence which allowed his four programmed rides to be shared amongst their other riders with no rider able to take more than one of those.

NEXT WEEK - A REMINDER!

IF all goes well in tomorrow's second leg at Sheffield, the club will be staging the home leg of a Young Shield semi-final at Smallbrook next but, obviously, we cannot confirm same until after the staging of tomorrow's match.

Needless to say first news will be carried on our website at the first opportunity or, alternatively, please phone our press officer Bryn Williams (see above for contact details) on Friday morning after 9am.