Redcar SG Petch Bears v Newcastle Diamonds – Thursday 15th June – 7:30pm
Redcar SG Petch Bears go into this Thursdays meeting against local rivals Newcastle battling injuries and rider availability – but still determined to get one over our Geordie friends!
As Bears manager Jitendra Duffill points out, the injury hit Bears had another night to forget last Friday at Edinburgh as their injury jinx struck again:
We go into this Thursday’s fixture little patched up. Jason, Charles, Coty and Danny have all picked up injuries in the last 2 weeks and putting a side together is becoming a real headache. Our awful luck continued at Edinburgh as we struggled to get to grips with a very tricky track surface following lots of rain leading up to the fixture.
Ellis Perks will miss the meeting due to riding for his Premier League club Rye House, ex-Bears favourite Ulrich Ostergaard will replace him. Jason Garrity, Charles Wright and Danny Ayres all miss out through injuries, with Thomas Jorgensen guesting for Garrity and Liam Carr guesting for Ayres. The Bears will run Rider Replacement for Charles Wright, due to his new average this will enable all Bears to take a ride. Duffill is frustrated he has not been able to put out a full strength side again:
Obviously our current situation is far from ideal but I promise that we are making every attempt to field the strongest team we can. I’m sure that our supporters are as frustrated as we are but we can only hope that our luck will change. I still maintain that our full 1-7 is one of the strongest in the league but due to reasons outside of our control, we haven’t been able to prove that yet.
We need to start picking up points again quickly if we want to start climbing the league table so we cannot afford to drop any more points at home. Silly mistakes have cost us recently and I will be emphasising again just how important every single point is to the outcome of a meeting.
Newcastle are at full strength, with new reserve signing Dan Greenwood taking his place in the side at the expense of Connor Coles. The Bears beat the Diamonds comfortably earlier in the season, but Duffill is expecting a tougher test this time round:
Newcastle are at full strength and I’m sure we will see a different side to the one we beat comfortably earlier in the season. I’m not expecting an easy ride and we will have to get off to a much better start to this meeting than we did 2 weeks ago against Glasgow. Newcastle have a very strong top 5 but they do lack strength at reserve. We must exploit this is we want to win as, on paper, we are much stronger at 6 and 7. This is a very good opportunity for Coty Garcia to get his meeting off to a strong start and he should be able to build a lot of confidence riding at number 6.
Redcar: Thomas Jorgensen, Jonas B Andersen, r/r for Charles Wright, Ulrich Ostergaard, Ben Barker, Coty Garcia, Liam Carr
Newcastle: Robert Lambert, Ashley Morris, Lewis Rose, Ludvig Lindgren, Steve Worrall, Dan Greenwood, Ben Hopwood
