LAURENCE Rogers was left lamenting his side’s bad luck after a depleted Coventry Storm suffered a night to forget in Kent following a heavy 66-24 defeat in the National League, writes Observer speedway reports Robin Allen.
That result came despite a stunning individual display from Storm number-one Dan Greenwood, who with a score of 13 picked up more than half of Storm’s points on his own.
Greenwood again showed his mastery of the Central Park circuit by breaking the track record in Heat 1, which was the first of four race wins against an ultra-strong Kings side.
But with the Storm’s other top heat-leader Liam Carr absent due to a broken scaphoid, it was always going to be an uphill battle as Rogers’ side fell to a second consecutive defeat in four days.
“If we were going to have any luck it was bad because we just couldn’t get going,” said Rogers. “It’s one of those nights, but to have Dan back to his very best is the big thing we can take out of it.
“They (Kent) are a strong team. They’re riding well, the luck wasn’t on our side and some of the refereeing was debatable and obviously we missed Liam badly – he scored 17 here last time. We have to put it behind us and re-group for next week.”
Storm had little in the way of fortune, as shown by Callum Walker leading Heat 2 only for guest Rob Watts to fall, and the re-run went the Kings’ way with Danno Verge coming through on the last bend.
Then Greenwood was most unlucky to be disqualified from Heat 4 after a clash with James Shanes where the general consensus was that a re-start with all four riders would have been the appropriate verdict, but after touching the tapes in the next and going off the 15-metre handicap, he brilliantly overhauled both David Mason and Danny Ayres.
But falls for Martin Knuckey and Ryan Terry-Daley helped the home side onto a run of four successive 5-1s, ended by Knuckey’s second place ahead of Luke Clifton in Heat 10.
Greenwood was then the only Storm rider to defeat opponents in the closing stages of the meeting, defeating Shanes in Heat 11 but then missing out to the former Coventry man in Heat 13 when attempting a challenge on Luke Bowen.
Storm number-one gained another win over Bowen and Danny Ayres in Heat 15 with a superb first lap move, but his display – reminiscent of the early part of last season – was all the visitors could take from the meeting.
