Thank you to George English and Diamonds Media Team for report and Steve Brock for the picture
Glasgow Tigers 45
Newcastle Diamonds 45
Premier League
Top Scorers
Glasgow - Joe Screen 13 1, James Grieves 11
Newcastle - Christian Henry 11 1, Stuart Robson 10
The Newcastle Diamonds went with an overpowering air of confidence to the Glasgow Tigers in yesterday's Premier League match (return this evening at Brough Park - 6.30pm) and it proved well-founded despite an opening 4-2 to the home side.
With the Worrall twins away on Under-21 World Championship Semi Final duty, guest reserves Joe Haines and Lubos Tomicek took a solid 1-5 from Jayden O' Malley and Mason Campton who briefly passed the Czech before losing his advantage before the end of the first lap putting the Diamonds into the lead 5-7.
Former Tiger Christian Henry and his Aussie partner Mark Lemon made Filip Sitera and a horrendously out-of-control Josh Grajczonek look very ordinary with another maximum score pushing the Diamonds 6-12 up.
Following two shared heats, Joe Screen took a win for Glasgow in the sixth race and tried team riding with Chris Mills during the heat, but Mills was lacking speed and Ludvig Lindgren eventually split the pairing reducing the 5-1 to a 4-2, taking the lead down to four once more.
Lemon fell whilst jostling for position on bend two of Heat Seven and remounted a long way back whilst Henry took the win before Tomicek took another fine Diamonds' heat win in the eighth chased hard by Mills and Campton with the scores still four apart, 22-26.
Lemon recovered his composure in Heat 10 to block out Screen well and with Henry taking the third place point by passing Mills on the final lap the 2-4 eased Newcastle two more ahead, but that was nullified again in Heat 11 with a James Grieves leading well and trying to team ride with O' Malley but Stuart Robson is too wily as he took the Tiger reserve on the last lap.
Lemon's Heat 12 win shared that race too but come Heat 13 disaster struck for the Diamonds when Lindgren fell on the third lap, stopping the races to be excluded and the result was awarded a home 5-1, levelling the meeting 39-39 with only two races left.
Henry stormed Heat 14 with ease, but Tomicek missed the gate to trail throughout in another 3-3 the match still level, 42-42, with only one race to go and with Screen and Grieves up against Henry and Robson, a stunning climax was on the cards.
As the tapes went up it was home number one Screen who jetted ahead to lead with Robson and Henry hot on his heels and Grieves at the rear, and whilst there were no passes in the race the close jousting for position made it the race of the afternoon which also ended up a shared 3-3 ending the match with a deserved 45-45 draw.
Diamond's boss George English said: "The lads had to overcome some major problems for Claes Nedermark who retired from two races making us effectively a six-man team and to a man the responded perfectly to lift their game and keep the match tight.
"Our guests both performed admirably and every point counted so we have no complaints whilst Christian Henry was superb. A draw was probably the fairest result, but a win would have been nice."
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