Old boss offers words of comfort for Eagles (From The Argus)

Old boss offers words of comfort for Eagles

7:30am Monday 30th March 2009 in Eagles news By Brian Owen

Former Eastbourne boss Jon Cook helped knock his old club out of the Knockout Cup, then tipped them to make a play-off bid.

Cook’s Lakeside Hammers completed a 100-88 aggregate win in the quarter-finals by losing 50-43 at Arlington on Saturday.

Eagles went into the meeting 19 points adrift but were dreaming of a memorable comeback after ten heats when they led 36-24.

However Adam Shields, the former Eastbourne favourite who now skippers Lakeside, came out for double points and led an 8-1 with Jonas Davidsson in a bizarre heat 11.

When Shields passed David Norris for second place in heat 13, the tie was beyond Eagles, who lifted the KO Cup last season.

Pundits have tipped Eagles to finish bottom of the Elite League and Lakeside to be no more than mid-table.

But, as the league season gradually comes to life this week, Cook believes both clubs can surprise.

He said: “I can’t see either of these teams losing a lot of home meetings so all the doom mongers saying Eastbourne are going to finish bottom are way off the mark.

“They are certainly a better team than Ipswich, who we have ridden against already, and I think they have shown they are better than Poole.

“Our aspiration is to win the league but we haven’t seen enough of the other teams.

“We will be okay and I think Eastbourne could scrape a play-off as well, although I don’t think it will be a very high placing.

“They have obviously got Denis Gizatullin to bring in if they want and he would be an unknown quantity.

“He could the kind of rider, as we have with Kauko Niemenen, who makes your season.”

Eagles’ unknown quantity so far is big track specialist Lukas Dryml and the Czech showed enough signs of progress to encourage a crowd reduced in size by bitterly cold weather, the first leg result and the counter attraction of televisied football.

Dryml had two great wins, including a heat 14 effort around the outside of Joonas Kylmakorpi which he had sized up by visiting the starting gates during the interval after heat ten.

Eagles boss Trevor Geer, whose side have won three of four meetings so far in Cup and Elite Shield, said: “Lukas got better and better and he is improving with every meeting.

“He is starting to master Eastbourne and he will be good on big tracks, which is what we want. We’re still going well. We just had a bad one at Lakeside.”

Former Eagles riders Lee Richardson and Kylmakorpi paired up for two 5-1s but were then hit in similar style by Davey Watt and Cameron Woodward as Eagles went 12 points up.

Cook admitted his side were just starting to get nervous at that point but Shields was a great man to have available for a tactical ride and Davidsson followed him into second place before a hint of controversy struck on the second lap.

David Norris pulled up, seemingly through mechanical failure, and the three other riders followed suit thinking the race had been stopped.

It later transpired all four had seen a red light, probably from a video recorder being used in the crowd, and believed the race had been halted.

They eventually realised the contest was still alive, by which time Davidsson was in front, but he slowed up at the flag to let Shields in for the double-points win.

“It made a mockery of the race,” said Geer, who wanted a re-run.

Referee Mick Posselwhite was right, however, in pointing out the confusion did not affect the race result.

There was still time for Bridger to beat Richardson and Watt to defeat Shields, though the latter took revenge as Lakeside scored a 4-2 in heat 15.

Somewhat strange scheduling means that, even at this early stage, Eagles already have only the league to race for this season.

Fortunately, the signs are that could still be interesting.

Eagles: Watt 13 (5), Bridger 8+1 (5), Dryml 8 (4), Woodward 7+2 (4), Gustafsson 5+2 (5), Norris 5 (4), Kiling 4 (4).

Lakeside: Shields 15 (5)^, Kylmakorpi 10 (5), Richardson 6+2 (4), Niemenen 5+1 (4), Robson 3 (4), Davidsson 2+1 (4), Mear 2+1 (4).