Tapes Up: Diamonds Take First League Points of 2012

Thank you to George English and our friends at Newcastle Diamonds, for the match report.

Sponsored in 2012 by Sapphire Engineering & Darrian Properties

Newcastle Diamonds 53
Scunthorpe Scorpions 37
(Premier League)

Top scorers:
Diamonds - Richie Worrall 13 1, Mark Lemon 12
Scorpions - Nick Morris 10 2, Josh Auty 9

Newcastle Diamonds made the perfect start to their 2012 Premier League campaign taking a good 16-point victory over the Scunthorpe Scorpions, but early on it looked like a different story.

The rapidly arranged Premier League match started badly for the home side with Thomas Jorgensen jetting away from the gate to take a win in the fastest time of the 2012 season at 62.9 seconds and with the highly impressive Nick Morris taking second the Diamonds were 1-5 down.

Richie Worrall took Heat Two well in Tyneside 4-2 whilst in Heat Three Ludvig Lindgren and Claes Nedermark were dominant in a 5-1 over Michael Palm Toft and Tero Aarnio to push the Diamonds into the lead 10-8.

Josh Auty moved fractionally before the start of Heat Four to take the three points in a share of the spoils, maintaining the two point gap, but with Lindgren and Nedermark out in front of Heat Five, Nick Morris shout round from third to first on lap one, and with Nedermark making an error on the third bend of the last lap Jorgensen repeated the task to form a Scorpions' 1-5, putting them back in the lead, 14-16.

A Stuart Robson / Christian Henry 4-2 levelled them match at the end of the sixth 18-18, but with Aarnio crashing awkwardly out of Heat Seven, Mark Lemon and Steve Worrall took Toft to the cleaners with a solid 5-1 putting Newcastle back in front 23-19.

Henry forced his way round Aarnio on the opening lap of Heat 10 with Robson winding on the power on the last lap to join his Aussie partner to hammer home a 5-1 over the Scunthorpe Finn and extend Newcastle's lead to 34-28.

All four riders hit the deck on bend one of Heat 11 with Lemon right in the middle of the collapse, but thankfully all four were fit to take their place in the re-run, in which Lemon took the win well ahead of the field despite some dramatic attempts from Morris behind in the 3-3.

Lemon's solid win in Heat 13 was all it took to seal the win on the night for the Diamonds who took a deserved and more sizeable victory than expected early on.

Team manager George English said: "In the first few races it looked like we were headed for a tough match, a last heat decided or even a home defeat, but the lads knuckled down and got on with the job despite some excellent riding from Nick Morris and Josh Auty who certainly made out life difficulty."