Ipswich Witches v Wolverhampton Wolves

Report

IN-FORM Wolverhampton moved to the top of the Sports Insure Premiership table with a hugely impressive 51-39 win at Ipswich.

The away victory also gave the Monmore side the aggregate point as they dominated the second half of the meeting, taking the lead with a 5-1 from Rory Schlein and Zach Cook in Heat 9.

Cook, who scored 10+3, was then involved in further maximums in Heats 12 and 14 before Ryan Douglas (12+1) and Sam Masters (10+1) put the icing on the cake with a 5-1 over the powerhouse home spearhead of Jason Doyle (13) and Emil Sayfutdinov (10+1).

Wolves boss Peter Adams said: “I half expected it to be honest, because we appear to be in something of a hot streak and we’ve got guys who can deal with their top two.

“To some extent we were concentrating on the races that they weren’t in because we thought they would be the races we could gain an advantage.

“Looking back, to restrict a team like that to just two heat advantages in the entire match was a tremendous effort.”

Witches manager Ritchie Hawkins said: “It was a very bad night; we were not good enough. We threw too many points away at the start of the meeting and made too many mistakes, which we were punished for by the end of the meeting.

“I’m sure we will get criticised and that is part of it, that’s fine, we were not good enough and maybe it is deserved tonight.

“It is early days but also, we have lost two at home already so we can’t be leaving ourselves too much to do in the second half of the season to try and chase the play-offs.”

IPSWICH 39: Jason Doyle 13, Emil Sayfutdinov 10+1, Danny King 6+1, Ben Barker 5+1, Danyon Hume 5+1, Joe Thompson 0, Keynan Rew r/r.
WOLVERHAMPTON 51: Ryan Douglas 12+1, Zach Cook 10+3, Sam Masters 10+1, Rory Schlein 8, Luke Becker 5+2, Steve Worrall 4+1, Leon Flint 2+1.
Wolverhampton win aggregate point

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Photo credit: JEFF HIGGOTT