Peterborough slipped to a narrow defeat against a strong looking Danish Select team, but pushed them hard despite not getting off to a good start.
Nevertheless their were enough positives to come out of Panthers team which saw most supporters go home happy, and the racing was excellent with little quarter asked or given.
Panthers Team Manager Trevor Swales was quite happy despite the result and said “I couldn’t find any fault to be honest, the team performed better than I hoped for and the racing was brilliant, we had to delay the start a bit to get all the crowd in and that caught us out a bit, but if we can produce decent racing like that every week we should get them back”.
A first race maximum by the Danish team was followed by another heat advantage in heat 2 and from then on it was hard work for the Panthers as they sought to reduce the Danish lead.
Mads Korneliussen started his Panthers career with two outstanding race wins in heats 3 and 5 and with heat 6 awarded, following a crash by Rene Bach, Panthers had reduced the arrears to just 2 points.
Niels Kristian Iversen got the better of an early scrap with Ostergaard to take the 7th and Claus Vissing the 8th after another tight race with Hougaard, but with the Select filling the minor places honours were even.
World Champion Nicki Pedersen duly lowered Korneliussens colours for the first time in heat 9 and Ostergaard surprisingly beat Dryml & Bjerre in heat 10 but again no advantage was gained as the heats were shared.
Andersen & Klindt shot away in heat 11 but Iversen caught and passed Klindt to restrict the advantage and Korneliussen made it 3 wins out of 4 with an impressive victory over Ostergaard in heat 12.
Bjerre completed a great comeback to take Andersen from the back and win heat 13 but unfortunately as he was getting the better up front Iversen was losing a great battle with Pedersen at the rear and the points were shared yet again.
Lee Complin made light of three opening ducks to blast away and hold on to win the 14th with Tully making a lot of friends with his efforts to get the better of Hougaard, but narrowly missing out on the run in to the line.
The Select duly flattered the final score line with a maximum in the finale but most supporters thought Pedersen’s line in squeezing Korneliussen against the fence as he passed him was extremely hard and the two riders exchanged words after the race.
Korneliussen later revealed he had asked Pedersen if he had left him enough room to pass him, much to the amusement of all at the press conference afterwards.
All in all this was a good display by the Panthers with enough to build on and their was no doubting that no other Elite League teams would arrive with the all round strength of the select whose green sheet averages totalled over 45 points.