Sheffield Tigers v Ipswich Witches

Report

SHEFFIELD secured match and aggregate points at home to Ipswich – despite a brilliant paid maximum from Witches star Emil Sayfudtinov.

The Tigers won the Sports Insure Premiership match 51-39 with a strong all-round showing to overturn a four-point defeat at Foxhall in April, and also gain revenge for a 12-point loss in Suffolk earlier in the week.

Skipper Kyle Howarth racked up 10+4 at reserve with Tobiasz Musielak scoring 9+1, whilst the Witches’ scorechart was totally dominated by Sayfutdinov (14+1) and Jason Doyle (13+1).

Howarth said: “We bounced back from a poor performance on Monday with a solid performance here. That was massive. Every point is valuable and we got them all tonight.

“Ipswich have got a good team and when you’ve got Emil and Jason Doyle in town you know you’re in for a tough night.

“It was another solid performance at home though, we’ve got a solid home record and we want to keep that going.”

Ipswich boss Ritchie Hawkins said: “I felt in the first half of the meeting we were right in it, and we could kick on and give ourselves a good chance by the end of the meeting, but we didn’t, and we went the other way.

“It is easy to see from the score-chart where we were lacking, we didn’t have any back-up for our top two.

“I think we will be stronger in the second half of the season, but that needs to start now. The improvement needs to start from here on in and we have got a big second half of the season to reach the play-offs.”

SHEFFIELD 51: Kyle Howarth 10+4, Tobiasz Musielak 9+1, Jack Holder 9, Adam Ellis 8+1, Lewis Kerr 5+1, David Bellego 5+1, Dan Gilkes 5+1.
IPSWICH 39: Emil Sayfutdinov 14+1, Jason Doyle 13+1, Danny King 5+1, Dan Thompson 3, Danyon Hume 2+1, Ben Barker 2, Keynan Rew 0.
Sheffield win the aggregate point

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Photo credit: CHARLOTTE FLANIGAN