SHEFFIELD boss Simon Stead admits there was a stroke of good fortune on their side in their win over Ipswich on Thursday – but has praised his riders for digging deep to bring the Witches’ winning streak to an end.
The Tru7 Group Tigers became the first team to defeat the Suffolk side in 2025 as they grabbed a deciding 5-1 in the last race to leave 46-44 victors.
No more than four points ever separated the sides in South Yorkshire in a gripping ROWE Motor Oil Premiership contest which the Tigers led for the vast majority of the night.
But the visitors moved ahead for the very first time with just one race to spare before captain Josh Pickering and Jack Holder produced a fine Heat 15 to grab the two league points in dramatic style and maintain their 100 per cent home record.
“It was a cracker wasn’t it?”, Stead said.
“That was tough – but we knew it was going to be.
“They haven’t gone unbeaten until this point for no reason.
“Their home form and their away form has been really good, they’ve got a good balance within their team and they showed why the bookies are making them favourites.
“I think we found it difficult in areas; we haven’t got the points return from some areas that we would expect and I think if the truth be told, we were on the receiving end of a little bit of good fortune.
“We’ll take that and put the win on the board but we know when it comes to the crunch at the business end of the season, we’re going to have to perform much better than that against this Ipswich team.
“But Picko and Jack did the business and credit to both boys – as well as the other lads who really dug deep because that was a tough one.”
Sheffield have two away fixtures at King’s Lynn (Monday, May 19) and Oxford (Thursday, May 22) next week to look forward to before returning to Owlerton on Bank Holiday Monday (May 26) for an earlier start of 6.30pm when they host Leicester in a double-header with the Steelers versus the Lion Cubs the second meeting on that night.
SHEFFIELD 46: Josh Pickering 14, Jack Holder 9+1, Anders Rowe 7+3. Chris Holder 6+1, Leon Flint 6, Lewis Kerr 3, Justin Sedgmen 2+1.
IPSWICH 44: Jason Doyle 10+1, Emil Sayfutdinov 8+1, Adam Ellis 7+1, Dan Thompson 7+1, Danny King 6+1, Tom Brennan 5, Jordan Jenkins 1+1.
