Birmingham Brummies v Oxford Spires

Report

OXFORD are off the mark in the ROWE Motor Oil Premiership with a maximum haul of points against Birmingham – inspired by new signing Craig Cook.

The Spires won 49-41 at Cowley on Bank Holiday Monday lunchtime and then added a 47-43 victory at Perry Barr where Cook reeled off five straight wins for a 15-point maximum at reserve.

Their home win was underpinned by a fast start to go eight points up in the early stages, and their opening combination of Maciej Janowski and Erik Riss both scored 11+2 from five rides.

Michael Jepsen Jensen totalled 13 for the Brummies, and they looked set to gain their long-awaited first win of the season when they led the return fixture by six points after five races.

But the Spires hit back strongly with 5-1s in Heats 9 and 11, and Cook then took crucial wins in Heats 12 and 14 to see them to the win on the night – despite the Brummies’ top two of Tobiasz Musielak (11+1) and Jepsen Jensen (10+2) both hitting double digits.

Oxford boss Peter Schroeck said: “It’s finally come right. When you have to work with what you’ve got, you have to keep going until it’s right, and we had a great day today.

“It’s got us off the bottom of the ladder so to speak, it’s a bit easier on the shoulders now, and this is where our season starts now, that’s how I look at it, and there was a really good atmosphere in the team.

“We probably didn’t expect Craig to score a 15-point maximum in his first away match, but he scored 17 for us in his first one at Sheffield last year! It is very unfortunate for Francis (Gusts) but we decided we had to go down the route of more experience.”

Brummies CEO Nigel Tolley said: “Our guys like riding the outside of the track; the first half they could successfully do it, but the second half they couldn’t do that because they just hadn’t got the depth of shale on the track.

“But we can blame it on the track as much as we like – I’m very disappointed. I think the exclusion in Heat 2 with Danyon (Hume) was wrong – we’ve had a look at our video and that doesn’t show any contact, and then I don’t know what happened halfway through.

“I thought we were on target, but things went from bad to worse. Craig Cook made that meeting for them tonight.”

BIRMINGHAM 43: Tobiasz Musielak 11+1, Michael Jepsen Jensen 10+2, Paco Castagna 7+1, Jason Edwards 7, Keynan Rew 6, Jonas Jeppesen 2, Danyon Hume 0.
OXFORD 47: Craig Cook 15, Erik Riss 8+1, Peter Kildemand 7, Maciej Janowski 7, Charles Wright 4+3, Luke Killeen 3+1, Rohan Tungate 3+1.
Oxford win the aggregate point

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Photo credit: PHIL McGLYNN