GLASGOW boss Stewart Dickson refused to count his chickens despite the Tigers taking command of their KO Cup semi-final.
The Ashfield men walked away 38-34 winners on a bizarre night at Somerset, in a meeting that was abandoned after 12 heats due to a 10pm curfew.
It followed a series of crashes that led to two home riders being withdrawn from the meeting – reducing the Rebels to just four men, with rider replacement already in operation for the absent Jake Allen.
Glasgow are hopeful that both Coty Garcia and Rene Bach will be fine to take their places in meetings tomorrow and Sunday after they were involved in a “scary” heat eight crash which saw home guest reserve Tom Bacon play no further part in the match.
Bradley Wilson-Dean, the Rebels’ in-form No 6, didn’t make it past the first turn of heat two before he was ruled out with a suspected broken collarbone.
Dickson – whose side were already without Nike Lunna after he broke his finger at Redcar on Thursday night – said: “It was a crazy night, nobody was giving an inch.
“It was unlucky for Bradley Wilson-Dean – the rest of the riders that were in crashes were all wounded but managed to walk back. We send our best wishes to Bradley, because we don’t like to see that happening to any rider.
“There was a scary crash in heat eight. Tom Bacon lifted coming out the second bend and collected our two riders with him, which was a horrible crash.
“Rene is extremely sore – but he’s a tough kid – and he got up and got on with it, and we got the result.
“To be honest I felt we should have won by more, given the fact that they were weakened. There was an opportunity to win by more than four.
“When at heat 12 the curfew was up, we were pretty relieved – nothing to do with heat 13 or 15, because Aaron Summers had already lowered Josh Gracjzonek’s colours, so Richie Worrall was getting right on it – it was the fact that we have both got to patch up our teams.
“As far as I know the guys are OK but you just don’t know what happens overnight. We just hope that they don’t wake up tomorrow and there’s something swollen somewhere.
“It was a good, gritty performance and there was no quarter given in any of the first bends – but there was no dirty racing on either side – it was just hard with riders going for the same spot.”
Glasgow now face Workington in the League Cup semi-final second leg tomorrow, before the return fixture against Somerset on Sunday.
Dickson added: “We got a win, and we’re obviously delighted with the result, but there are still 15 heats to go on Sunday.
“We’ve got to do a professional job at Workington and then on Sunday you can be assured Somerset, the holders of the KO Cup, will come up with a decent guest for Bradley Wilson-Dean and Jake Allen is back. They will be strong.
“The tie is far from over and our guys know that. But we’ve given ourselves a great chance of making two finals now – and we can’t ask for anything more than that.”
Tigers scorers: Coty Garcia 13, Aaron Summers 8+1, Richie Worrall 7, Danny Ayres 4+3, Rene Bach 4+1, Richard Lawson 2+2, Nike Lunna R/R.