Lions banish their away day blues by securing victory on south coast
FORMER SKIPPER NICHOLLS AND MORRIS ARE THE TOP SCORERS
LEICESTER raced to their first away win of the season in the Championship by beating Eastbourne 48-41 on Sunday, writes Alan Jones.
The Lions took an early lead through the Thompson twins, Dan and Joe, who scored maximum points in the second race of the afternoon and that spurred their team-mates on to continue the trend by winning three of the next five heats and drawing two.
The purple patch put Leicester in a strong position, with a nine-point lead over their hosts at the halfway stage, but their sequence was disrupted by the Eastbourne riders who began to find their form.
By the interval the home team were back in contention, having reduced the Lions’ lead to a single point.
But after the break Leicester pulled further ahead when Scott Nicholls – Lions’ former Championship-winning captain riding as a guest replacment – and Dan Thompson rode a perfect four laps to keep Eastbourne’s captain Lewis Kerr in third place.
From there, apart from a reversal in the 12th heat, it was all one way in the Lions’ favour.
Nick Morris and Nicholls outpointed their opposite numbers in the Eastbourne team in the 13th race.
Then Ryan Douglas and Dan Thompson repeated the feat against the home pairing in the next race.
Those two results ensured that no matter what happened in the final race Leicester had won the match.
But there was also the incentive of picking up an additional league point if the Lions pairing of Nicholls and Morris were able to outpoint the Eastbourne riders.
At the start of the race, Morris was quickly into the lead ahead of Richard Lawson with Nicholls holding onto third position until eventually losing his place to Kyle Newman.
The finishing order would have seen Leicester missing out on an additional league point but Nicholls found extra speed to re-pass Newman.
That ensured the Watling JCB Lions left Sussex with the maximum number of league points to the delight of their many fans who travelled to support the team.
Scorers:
Eastbourne 41: Richard Lawson 12+2 points, Kyle Newman 9+1, Edward Kennett 7+1, Tom Brennan 7, Lewis Kerr 3, Jason Edwards 1 and Jake Knight 2.
Leicester 48: Scott Nicholls 10+1 points, Zaine Kennedy 1, Kyle Howarth 5, Ryan Douglas 5+1, Nick Morris 13, Dan Thompson 11 and Joe Thompson 3+1.