WITCHES GAIN WELCOME WIN

JASON Doyle and Emil Sayfudtinov were both unbeaten as Ipswich returned to winning ways with a 54-36 victory over Peterborough.

Sayfutdinov raced to a 12-point maximum with Doyle collecting 14+1 from five, and skipper Danny King weighed in with 12+1 as the Witches dominated the race wins.

The Panthers lost Rising Star reserve Jordan Jenkins on the day of the meeting after his big crash at Oxford on Wednesday but did keep the margin down to six points before the home side pulled away in the final six races. Richie Worrall top-scored for the visitors with 9+1.

Witches manager Ritchie Hawkins said: “I’m obviously happy to win, and to win convincingly. There were lots of positives to take from the meeting.

“We certainly can’t get carried away with beating Peterborough because they’re struggling – but we can only beat who’s in front of us, and tonight we did a good, solid professional job.

“There aren’t many meetings we go into where we look stronger on paper at reserve, but we did tonight, and we certainly took advantage of that.”

Stand-in Panthers boss Laurence Rogers said: “It was a tough one for the boys, we kept it close and we were six points down at Heat 9 when we brought Basso in for a tactical substitute ride, but he fell off and hurt his hand – but he kept going, which was good.

“We were just missing the heat wins. When you’re up against Emil and Doyley it is a hard thing, and the real Danny King was here tonight.”

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Photo credit: JEFF HIGGOTT