Kent SLYDE Kings enter the final and most crucial stage of a memorable season this Friday when they take on local rivals Eastbourne Eagles at Central Park in the first leg of the Travel Plus National League championship Play Offs semi-final.
Having beaten the side from Sussex twice previously in home matches this term and prevailed on aggregate in both the Good Friday Chase and in the TPNL itself, Chris Hunt’s charges will be looking to establish a good sized lead to take with them when they make the short journey to Arlington over the county boundary the following Friday (7/10).
The Eagles are flying high themselves, though, with – one would have to say – more than one wheel in the semi-final of the Knock-out Cup [KOC] Final after an away win against Cradley. Last term the Sussex seasiders won the KOC and also ended the season winning the Gold Cup. The significance of the latter is that last season the ‘Play Offs’ involving the top four in the division wasn’t for the championship itself (as it’s reverted to in 2016) but for the separate Gold Cup; yet then as now Birmingham had topped the divisional standings only for the fast-finishing Eagles to take the ‘play off’ honours. The SLYDE Kings (who lie second in the table) will be aware of how dangerous history and current form strongly suggests their neighbours can be at this, the real business-end of the season.
For the first time this term, the visitors from Sussex will have their number one Adam Ellis in action at Central Park. Topping the overall TPNL averages with a figure only just below 11 points, the GB World Team Cup international has been able to combine being a high scoring member of the Poole Pirates side in the Elite League and World Under 21 championship duties with leading the way for the Eagles in the third tier. Ellis first rode at Central Park as a fresh-faced teen in the reserve berth for the Isle of Wight in the Kings’ first ever competitive meeting in 2013 – things have certainly moved on for the rider raised in the South of France since then.
Another Ellis from even further south is Queensland-raised Ellis Perks who is a man in form having scored ten points for the Eagles’ quartet which fell just short of retaining their County Fours title at Central Park last Friday and top-scoring for his side in that KOC victory at Wolverhampton against the tenants there, Cradley. .
Also back for a second week running in the blue and yellow are the Maidstone-based, Central Park regular, Georgie Wood and three times GB Youth champ Tom Brennan. After national titles at 125cc, 150cc and last year at 250cc the Sussex-based teen Brennan had to settle for second in the 500cc junior class this year. Unluckily the 15 year old broke his collarbone on his TPNL debut actually on his landmark birthday but is back to full fitness now. With another Youth champ of old, the former Kings’ man Luke Harris on the injured list for Eastbourne, a great deal of responsibility falls upon the young protégé of Eastbourne’s iconic former GB Grand Prix champ and club legend, Martin Dugard.
A fractured clavicle is what keeps out former Sittingbourne Crusaders; Gary Cottham for whom Eastbourne have been using Rider Replacement for some weeks now; whilst that same injury is failing to sideline Orpington-based Grasstrack-convertee Charley Powell.
The captain of the Eagles is the experienced Jake Knight.
For the homesters, former Eastbourne man David Mason is in the best form of his season – winning Rider of the Night and recording his fastest ever winning time at his long time home track in last week’s Fours event staged at Central Park. Skipper Luke Bowen was in typically imperious form that night also. Danny Ayres was absent then but is free from Premier League duties elsewhere this Friday and has limbered up very nicely for the challenge by winning an individual title at Mildenhall at the weekend and then claiming the scalp of Adam Ellis when guesting for Cradley on Tuesday in the aforementioned KOC semi. The SLYDE Kings are at full strength and fired up for this one knowing that an aggregate victory will not only propel them into their first ever Championship Play-off Final but that waiting for them there is likely to be their chief rivals of this hugely memorable campaign, the Birmingham Brummies.
The Eagles are flying high themselves, though, with – one would have to say – more than one wheel in the semi-final of the Knock-out Cup [KOC] Final after an away win against Cradley. Last term the Sussex seasiders won the KOC and also ended the season winning the Gold Cup. The significance of the latter is that last season the ‘Play Offs’ involving the top four in the division wasn’t for the championship itself (as it’s reverted to in 2016) but for the separate Gold Cup; yet then as now Birmingham had topped the divisional standings only for the fast-finishing Eagles to take the ‘play off’ honours. The SLYDE Kings (who lie second in the table) will be aware of how dangerous history and current form strongly suggests their neighbours can be at this, the real business-end of the season.
For the first time this term, the visitors from Sussex will have their number one Adam Ellis in action at Central Park. Topping the overall TPNL averages with a figure only just below 11 points, the GB World Team Cup international has been able to combine being a high scoring member of the Poole Pirates side in the Elite League and World Under 21 championship duties with leading the way for the Eagles in the third tier. Ellis first rode at Central Park as a fresh-faced teen in the reserve berth for the Isle of Wight in the Kings’ first ever competitive meeting in 2013 – things have certainly moved on for the rider raised in the South of France since then.
Another Ellis from even further south is Queensland-raised Ellis Perks who is a man in form having scored ten points for the Eagles’ quartet which fell just short of retaining their County Fours title at Central Park last Friday and top-scoring for his side in that KOC victory at Wolverhampton against the tenants there, Cradley. .
Also back for a second week running in the blue and yellow are the Maidstone-based, Central Park regular, Georgie Wood and three times GB Youth champ Tom Brennan. After national titles at 125cc, 150cc and last year at 250cc the Sussex-based teen Brennan had to settle for second in the 500cc junior class this year. Unluckily the 15 year old broke his collarbone on his TPNL debut actually on his landmark birthday but is back to full fitness now. With another Youth champ of old, the former Kings’ man Luke Harris on the injured list for Eastbourne, a great deal of responsibility falls upon the young protégé of Eastbourne’s iconic former GB Grand Prix champ and club legend, Martin Dugard.
A fractured clavicle is what keeps out former Sittingbourne Crusaders; Gary Cottham for whom Eastbourne have been using Rider Replacement for some weeks now; whilst that same injury is failing to sideline Orpington-based Grasstrack-convertee Charley Powell.
The captain of the Eagles is the experienced Jake Knight.
For the homesters, former Eastbourne man David Mason is in the best form of his season – winning Rider of the Night and recording his fastest ever winning time at his long time home track in last week’s Fours event staged at Central Park. Skipper Luke Bowen was in typically imperious form that night also. Danny Ayres was absent then but is free from Premier League duties elsewhere this Friday and has limbered up very nicely for the challenge by winning an individual title at Mildenhall at the weekend and then claiming the scalp of Adam Ellis when guesting for Cradley on Tuesday in the aforementioned KOC semi. The SLYDE Kings are at full strength and fired up for this one knowing that an aggregate victory will not only propel them into their first ever Championship Play-off Final but that waiting for them there is likely to be their chief rivals of this hugely memorable campaign, the Birmingham Brummies.
The Play Off semi first leg, Kent SLYDE Kings vs. Eastbourne Eagles is on this Friday (30/9) at Central Park in the Eurolink industrial park in Murston just outside Sittingbourne – gates at 5pm; tapes up at 6.30pm.
TAGS: Kent Kings