Ricky Wells collected a heat win guesting for Glasgow. Picture by Jack Cupido

A late fightback from Newcastle Diamonds kept them within two points of Glasgow in the Knockout Cup quarter-final to set up a tight second leg on Monday night.

Tigers held a ten-point lead by Heat 12 and looked to be running out comfortable winners at the Peugeot Ashfield Stadium.

But the visitors scored two 5-1s in the last two races to pull the gap back to just two points at 46-44.

Diamonds are now favourites to qualify but injury-hit Glasgow hope to welcome back more of their regular riders after having to rely on four guests due to injuries and fixture clashes.

Englishman Kyle Newman, who was guesting for crocked Finnish rider Nike Lunna, withdrew from the meeting through illness late-on forcing team manager Stewart Dickson to call in Tero Aarnio who has had limited experience of the Ashfield circuit in recent years.

Overall, it was a decent performance from the much-changed Tigers, barring the final two heats, with heatleaders Richie Worrall, Aaron Summers and guest Ricky Wells all bagging important wins along with Aarnio and reserve guest Richard Hall.

But with Hall and fellow guest reserve Connor Coles having to race in heat 14, the stronger visiting pairing of Ludvig Lindgren and Ben Hopwood took a maximum before Tigers’ suffered the same result in the last race.

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