TROY Batchelor should have been Peterborough’s secret weapon in their bid to climb into second place in the table.
But his return to old track Ipswich turned into a personal nightmare for the Australian – and another pointless away day for the Panthers.
Batchelor, a revelation after his mid-season move to Foxhall Heath last season, had his worst performance in Peterborough colours.
And there was no one able to step into his shoes as the Panthers didn’t even rescue a point from the local derby.
The match itself started controversially when the Witches tracked in-form Birmingham star Justin Sedgmen as a replacement for missing Polish reserve Dawid Stachyra.
The young Australian had been booked on Sunday morning – apparently before Stachyra aggravated his injury while taking and completing five rides in a Polish League match!
It turned out to be a fortunate piece of foresight as Sedgmen was voted Man of the Match and his double figure score probably influenced the final result as much if not more than Scott Nicholls’ untroubled maximum.
Peterborough could, and should, have come away with a win but there were too many below pars to accompany Batchelor’s unexpected low points return.
Lewis Bridger’s nightmare start to his Peterborough career continued as the only points he gained came at the expense of a handicapped Claus Vissing (put back 15 metres for touching the tapes in Heat 3) and the home reserves.
He also ended up on the receiving end of a £250 from referee Chris Gay for unsporting conduct after he stayed down to prompt a re-run after he’d hit the fence in Heat 10 when Nicholls and Sedgmen led Kenneth Bjerre.
Panthers were on the rough end of a controversial start to the meeting, Niels-Kristian Iversen being thrown out of the race after Oliver Allen had come down.
Even though the skipper was clearly in front of Allen going into the second lap he was blamed for the incident and, later, he again suffered at Mr. Gay’s hands, this time for a tape-touching offence.
Only Bjerre, a model of high-scoring consistency, came out of the meeting with reputation fully intact as he piled up 14 points, including a penultimate race six pointer which gave Panthers a glimpse of that consolation point.
But Nicholls ended even those hopes to complete his paid maximum to leave the Peterborough management assessing the team’s strengths and weaknesses after three matches in six days which promised much but yielded only four points.
IPSWICH 50 (Scott Nicholls 13:2 (3-2:1-3-2:1-3), Oliver Allen (1), Claus Vissing 4:1 (0-1:1-F-3), Danny King 10 (3-2-3-2), Robert Miskowiak 10 (3-2-2-3-0), Justin Sedgmen 10:1 (2-3-2-1-0-1-1:1), Hugh Skidmore 2:1 (0-1-0-1:1).