Jon Cook today backed his Eastbourne Eagles to make the Craven Shield final, despite two moments of misfortune at Oxford.

Eagles have a two-point lead over Silver Machine in the battle to reach the final of the Craven Shield after last night's semi-final second leg at Sandy Lane.

Oxford scored an impressive 42 points out of a maximum 60 in their home meeting of the three-leg semi-final with Niels-Kristian Iversen picking up 11 out of 12.

Eagles followed on 34 and Belle Vue, last in the opening match at Arlington, trailed in again with 32.

That leaves Eastbourne on 71 points, Oxford on 69 and Belle Vue on 58.

The aggregate winner of this three-way battle will go into the final and the runner-up will join them if they finish less than five points adrift.

Cook, though, felt Eagles could have been almost home and dry with better luck.

Adam Shields crashed on the last bend when leading heat one, allowing Oxford a 5-1 win.

Then a spin for Nicki Pedersen saw him drop his only points of the night.

Cook, the Eagles promoter, said: "With those six points we would have won the meeting.

"I thought we had a bit of bad luck so I'm not happy with the result but I thought we showed a lot of spirit.

"We still have a six-point leeway to get to the final so in that respect it was job done.

"We've got every opportunity to qualify for the final."

Belle Vue, while not out of the running, face a monumental task to grab a final place when they host the third and final leg on Monday.

They competed with just five men last night after Andy Smith was ruled too ill to ride.

Cook said: "For a while they did not look like they would be a factor in the meeting.

"But they came back quite well and took some points off Oxford."

Silver Machine, though, look the main danger.

Wth the return of Billy Hamill, Greg Hancock and Henka Gustafsson, they are a formidable unit and all three of their pairs opened with 5-1s, two of them against Eastbourne.

Pedersen enjoyed a win over Simon Stead as Eagles scored a 4-2 over the Aces in heat two.

Jason Crump dropped just one point for Belle Vue, to Shields.

Two of his wins led to heat advantages over the hosts, which in turn did Eastbourne a favour.

Eagles were hoping for a bit of Aces magic as they sat out the final race of the evening.

A 5-1 for Oxford would have seen them draw level on aggregate with Eastbourne.

Instead, Stead, the only man to beat Iversen, rounded off his good night's work, fighting off Gustaffson and Hamill to force a 3-3 and keep Cook's men in front overall.