Diamonds topple leaders Panthers

ANOTHER terrific victory over one of the top sides in the SGB Championship has everyone at Newcastle wishing the season was just starting.

Last night at Byker, the BTS Diamonds followed up their outstanding win at Sheffield by picking up another three league points, defeating current tabletoppers Peterborough Panthers, 47-43.

Beaten by 20 points at Berwick the previous evening, it looked as though the Panthers were in for a similar reverse as the rampant Diamonds got off to a great start with a 5-1 in the first race through skipper Stuart Robson and Tero Aarnio as they brilliantly kept seven-times British champion Scott Nicholls behind them.

Matthew Wethers and Carl Wilkinson swiftly took a 4-2 in the next to put Newcastle six ahead, but the Panthers are not top of the table for nothing, and a 5-1 from guest Paul Starke and lively reserve Tom Bacon over Ludvig Lindgren cut the deficit to two points.

Czech ace Matej Kus then defeated Nicholls in a very close finish to the fifth, but that was the last time the Panthers No.1 was to be headed by a Diamond for the rest of the match.

With the Panthers trailing, 21-15, Nicholls came into the seventh race as a tactical substitute and with Michael Palm Toft raced away to another 5-1 over Lindgren.

Two 5-1s to the Diamonds through Aarnio and Wethers in Heat 8 and by Kus and Ashley Morris in the ninth seemed to set Newcastle on the way to a comfortable win with a lead of ten points, 32-22, at that stage.

But Nicholls still had three more races to come, while Bradley Wilson-Dean and Palm Toft were also race-winners in the last five races. Nicholls and Starke took a crucial 5-1 in the thirteenth, and the same pair would have made the match a draw with a replica result in the finale.

However, as Diamonds Kus and Robson were settling in behind Nicholls, Starke came bursting through on the inside and Robbo went flying, with the Panther subsequently disqualified.