Diamonds win in trophy derby

NEWCASTLE Diamonds turned around their stuttering away fortunes with a 49-41 victory at Berwick Bandits in last night’s Tyne-Tweed Trophy first leg.

The Diamonds used rider replacement for hand-injury victims Lewis Rose and Stuart Robson, Lewis Kerr coming in as a guest.

Visiting rider Tero Aarnio was excluded from heat one when he shot through the tapes, but the rerun gave Ashley Morris and Ludvig Lindgren a shock 1-5, putting the visitors four up.

Following a shared 3-3 in heat two, Aarnio and Newcastle partner Matthew Wethers shot away, leaving Lindman and David Howe in their wake for another Diamonds’ 1-5, taking the score to an unexpected 5-13.

Dany Gappmaier eased his way to the front of heat four, a share as Nikolaj Busk Jakobsen trailed at the back.

Heat five looked set to be another share until second-placed Lindgren, following the leading Howe, had his bike go bang in a plume of smoke on the last bend, sending the Diamond to the back in a Berwick 4-2, narrowing the gap by two points.

Aaron Summer was chasing hard throughout heat six but found a burst of power to dive under Kerr to take a fine win out of the blue in a 3-3 to move the scores forward to 15-21.

Wethers and Kerr then made a great pair of gates in heat seven to take an easy 1-5 against Berwick’s Jakobsen and Jye Etheridge which extended the Diamonds’ lead to 10 points.

Aarnio fell in a tight heat-eight first bend with all four called back by the referee. In the re-run, Aarnio was replaced by Wilkinson for failing to beat the two-minute warning, but it was Morris and Wilkinson who fought hard to lead after one Ludvig Lindgren top-scored for Newcastle Diamonds in last night’s Tyne-Tweed Trophy first-leg victory at Shielfield Park lap with another 1-5 in the Diamonds’ bag and the score 17-31.

Another woeful gate from the Bandits, and a lost steel shoe for Howe, allowed Wilkinson and Kerr another away maximum in the ninth.

Heat 10 looked like another until Summers found his way past Wethers to turn the 1-5 to a 2-4 as Newcastle soared to 20-40 with five heats remaining, which meant that, bar- ring a disaster, Berwick could only force a draw come heat 15.

The first 5-1 went to Berwick in heat 11 as Aarnio’s bike gave up on the start line, but a last from Lindman in heat 12 resigned the Bandits to a home defeat.