GLASGOW were brought “back down to Earth with a bump” tonight as they could only muster a point at Redcar.
The Tigers went into the meeting on Teeside targeting another win after a big victory at Berwick last night.
However, they found themselves having to use a tactical ride to pull themselves back into the meeting after nine heats – and could have won it in the end having drawn level in the penultimate race.
But Richie Worrall and Rene Bach, the Tigers’ top men, couldn’t reproduce their maximum heroics of last night and went down to the Bears’ best duo of David Bellego and Lasse Bjerre in the last heat for a 48-44 result.
It gives Glasgow five points from their mini tour of the North East, but team manager Stewart Dickson admitted he had hoped for more.
He said: “We’re back down to Earth with a bump. In all fairness, they were the better team tonight.
“We started awfully slowly and we got back into it, and I thought we could maybe steal it at the end, but a couple of our riders had off nights – which didn’t help.
“It’s disappointing. We can’t kid ourselves and say that a point isn’t bad – we were aiming for a lot more than that. But we’ll just need to get on with it.
“The meetings are coming thick and fast now.”
“They were up for it after what we did last night. But we know the script, we know that’s how it’s going to be in a lot of away matches. They were quicker out the starts and it just didn’t happen for us.
“We’ll need to knuckle down because the meetings are coming thick and fast now – so we need to get ready for a big match on Sunday against Edinburgh.”
However, Dickson was enthused by another strong performance from reserve Nike Lunna, in only his second match after returning from injury, who scored 7+3 including a paid win in heat 14.
He added: “He was tiring, which was to be expected, but with each match he’ll get better. That is one positive from tonight.”
Elsewhere in the Premier League, Peterborough won at Sheffield – putting them into second place on 29 points, four behind the Tigers, but with one meeting in hand.
Tigers scorers: Richie Worrall 11+1, Rene Bach 10, Aaron Summers 9, Nike Lunna 7+3, Richard Lawson 7, Coty Garcia 0, Danny Phillips (guest) 0.