STORM boss Laurence Rogers remains proud of his side despite slipping to a 53-37 defeat at Kent in the National League.
A depleted Storm side travelled to Central Park on Monday night in the highly unusual position of being without four of their top five riders which left them way short of full strength.
However, the riders on duty certainly made a match of it and were in contention to even snatch a point until the final two races.
Dan Greenwood led the way with three race wins, whilst reserves Ryan Terry-Daley and Martin Knuckey both scored solidly and collected a 5-1 in Heat 2.
Guest Brendan Johnson joined Greenwood in double figures as the Storm remained in contention with the gap at only eight points with four heats to go.
But the hosts provided the majority of race wins in the second half of the meeting, although a last-heat 5-1 from David Mason and Ben Morley meant the final margin was in no way reflective of the way the meeting had gone.
“Overall I was very proud of the boys we had, and you can’t knock any of them for effort,” said Rogers.
“(Kent promoter) Len Silver came and shook hands afterwards and told me to thank our boys for putting on such a good show.
“It’s a shame because I think if we’d had just one of the top boys there we would have had enough to win it, and Sarj (James Sarjeant) actually came along to watch which was amazing for him to make an effort like that.”
Storm now have nearly four weeks without a fixture scheduled which should allow time for Sarjeant, Oliver Greenwood and Luke Crang to recover from their respective injuries.