Scunthorpe’s home winning streak at Conference League level ended after forty-eight matches last night when they were edged out in a last-heat decider by the Boston Barracudas 48-45. 

It is the Barracudas who progress to take on the Plymouth Devils in the final after securing a 106-80 aggregate victory.  Leading the scoring for Scunthorpe was Gary Irving with 12+2 bonus points whilst Boston had two riders, Joe Haines and Simon Lambert, unbeaten by a home rider.  Haines recorded a 15-point maximum whilst Lambert recorded 20+1 bonus point.

Lambert’s total included a six-point tactical substitution in heat 9 which proved to be the turning point of the match.  Until then the Barracudas hadn’t provided a heat advantage whilst the Saints’ reserve pairing of Irving and Wrathall had recorded 5-1 maximums in heats 2 and 8 when none of Boston’s heat leader trio were taking part.  Unfortunately the latter put the Saints eights point in front and Boston could put one of their top riders into an extra heat from the fifteen-metre mark.  With Adam Allott taking the lead and Scott Richardson taking an early tumble the Boston number three made easy work of joining Allott at the front to combine for an 8-1 and bring the scores to within one.  Lambert then combined with Darren Mallett for a 4-2 over Byron Bekker and debutant Craig Cook in the next race before a nasty crash for Adam Wrathall in heat 11.

16-year old Wrathall had been having his best meeting for the Saints but he crashed heavily and had to go to hospital with a suspected broken wrist.  The crash meant Boston edged two more points clear after the re-run and the three point gap remained until heat 14.  That race was the third of the night without one of the visiting heat-leaders and it was the third 5-1 for the Saints as Irving and Parnaby kept Mallet and Widman at bay.  It gave the Saints the lead back but with Haines and Lambert due out for Boston the Saints were looking for something special.  Unfortunately, despite Irving and Bekker pushing Lambert all the way in the race of the night, they failed to find a way past and Scunthorpe’s long and proud unbeaten home record at Conference League level, which stretched back to May 2006,  had ended after forty-eight meetings.

The Saints final meeting of the season is the Conference League Fours meeting at Stoke next Saturday, 18th June and Team Manager has named his side for the prestigious competition.  It is Byron Bekker, Scott Richardson, Gary Irving and Ben Hopwood.  Although the Saints and Scorpions have no more team action at the Eddie Wright Raceway there are two top meetings to finish the season.  On Monday 27th October the British Under-18 Championship will be run at Scunthorpe whilst the following Friday the Hallowe’en Trophy individual meeting will be run.  All Scorpions are due to complete alongside Elite Leaguer David Howe, King’s Lynn’s Kevin Doolan and former Scorpions Tai Woffinden, Joe Haines, Josh Auty and Andrew Tully.  With a massive fireworks display at the latter and the country’s finest young riders in the former it is set to be quite a week of speedway to end the British speedway season.

Scunthorpe Saints’ top scorer Gary Irving:
“The meeting went well for me personally. I had a really good meeting but obviously I’m disappointed for the team because we lost on the night.  Even though we lost on aggregate we wanted to win on the night.  I know Scunthorpe haven’t lost in the conference league for a long time and we just wanted to keep that run going.  In heat 15 I was pushing really hard but wasn’t really very sure where to go because Byron was behind me.  I don’t know if I messed him up a bit or not but I got close to Lambert a couple of times.  I felt quick enough and tried my best, that’s all you can do.  We’ve got the CL fours next weekend and hopefully we can do something in that then I’ll have a winter break, I’m having an operation to remove a steel rod from his leg then hopefully I can get a place in the Premier League somewhere next year” 

Scunthorpe Saints’ Team Manager Malcolm Vasey:
“Congratulations to Boston!  They had a top pairing that was just too powerful for us. I thought my riders absolutely tried their hearts out and heat 15, for instance, was absolutely heart stopping racing, I thought it was Adam Wrathall’s best ever meeting until he unfortunately fell.  It was a good performance by both teams but sometimes you just have to say the opposition was just too good for us and after all it’s no discredit to lose to Joe Haines, he did get fourteen points in the Elite League earlier in the week.  I was very proud of my riders but I take nothing away from their top pair and using a tactical substitution when they did certainly paid off for them”.

Scunthorpe 45
Byron Bekker 8+1 (5 rides), Craig Cook 1+1 (3), Scott Richardson 5+1 (4), Stuart Parnaby 6+2 (4), Ben Hopwood 6+2 (4), Adam Wrathall 7+1 (4), Gary Irving 12+2 (6)

Boston 48
Joe Haines 15 (5 rides), Adam Lowe 0 (3), Simon Lambert 20+1 (6 rides, including a six point tactical substitution), Darren Mallett 2 (4), Adam Allott 7+1 (4), Chris Widman 2+1 (6), Oliver Rayson 2 (3)