Berwick Bullets look to defend a three-point lead as they bid to end the club’s 26-year knockout final drought. The last Berwick team to reach a final was the Bandits who won the 1995 Conference League Knockout Cup, current day coach Kevin Little captaining the side to victory over Stoke, writes George Dodds.
On Sunday, the Grant Henderson Tankers Bullets travel to Mildenhall in the National Development League play-off semi-final with a slender lead from an incident-packed and bruising first-leg at Shielfield Park.
In the aftermath of a hugely-entertaining encounter, influential heat-leader Greg Blair was forced to step down from racing for the season, suffering from the long-term after-effects of a head injury.
He still plans travel to West Row to support his colleagues with Berwick using rider-replacement – as does the home side – for him, but skipper Kyle Bickley has recovered from the high speed, third bend crash which left him with leg injuries from an eventful heat 13.
Both Berwick riders were excluded but Mildenhall’s Jack Kingston managed to turn what seemed like a mundane 5-0 into an epic race against the clock by falling heavily on the last lap as he followed team-mate Jason Edwards around.
Kingston pushed his bike 300 metres to collect the points which, briefly, put Mildenhall ahead in a meeting in which they had, at one point, trailed by 12 points.
He was then checked out by medical staff and found to be suffering concussion which rules him out of Sunday’s meeting which starts at 3pm.
With James Shanes already missing the Tigers are allowed to cover the Essex-based riders’ absence with a guest and have turned to Armadale’s Danny Phillips.
Sam Bebee, another long-term concussion victim, dropped to reserve on the green sheet averages which came into operation just before the semi-final allowing Mildenhall to call upon unattached three-point guest.
Not surprisingly, 15-year-old Luke Harrison is back in Mildenhall colours on Sunday having scored 11 points on his competitive team debut at Shielfield and it could have been even more but for two spectacular crashes in heats 14 and 15 which, thankfully, the long-time Berwick Academy rider walked away from.
Leicester and Belle Vue have both won at West Row this season while Berwick were missing Luke Crang through injury and lost Pijper in a first heat crash when they were beaten there in the league last month.
Just one point separated the teams at the end of the league programme and at stake on Sunday is a place in the play-off against Leicester, 96-84 aggregate winners over Oxford in the other semi-final.
“Obviously, it’s a blow to not have Greg on-track on Sunday, but it is what it is and he will still have a part to play in the pits,” team manager Gary Flint said.
“The six wearing the Bullets colours on Sunday are the riders whose efforts have got them this far in the first place. They have earned the right to be in the play-off semi-final and are geared up for one more big push.
“We have a lead, albeit a slender one, and we’ll be fighting to defend it. It’s been a long season but no-one in the Berwick camp wants to see it end.”
Tigers: Jason Edwards, Rider-replacement (for James Shanes), Josh Warren, Alex Spooner, Danny Phillips (guest), Luke Harrison (guest), Luke Muff.
GHT Bullets: Kyle Bickley, Rider-replacement (for Greg Blair), Ace Pijper, Ben Rathbone, Luke Crang, Kieran Douglas, Mason Watson
PICTURE: Ace Pijper, aged 16, and 15-year-old Luke Harrison, two teenagers with a role to play in the semi-final. Picture by Keith Hamblin courtesy of Berwick Bandits
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