Eastbourne Eagles 51, Oxford Cheetahs 39

DESPITE the scoreline, JT/Fox Oxford Cheetahs put up an encouraging peformance in the Craven Shield at Eastbourne on Saturday ahead of their big Elite league clash tomorrow night at Ipswich, writes LEON HILL.

This meeting was pretty irrelevant for Cheetahs, who were highly unlikely to make the finals following their two defeats at the hands of the Poole Pirates.

It was more about coming through unscathed and restoring some confidence of the key riders. Both of these aims were achieved, with Todd Wiltshire approaching his best form once again after a below-par performance at home on Friday.

Eastbourne got ahead for the first time in heat two with maximum points over the Oxford reserves.

Their lead doubled in heat three when Steve Johnston failed to leave the start after claiming that he did not see the green light come on. Referee Frank Ebdon did not stop the race and Johnston left the track, but with Wiltshire squeezed out on the first turn, Cheetahs found themselves eight points down.

Leigh Adams showed that he is still a master performer at Arlington with a blasting win in heat four and with Ales Dryml tucking in behind him, Cheetahs notched a maximum heat of their own.

Eastbourne returned the compliment in the next over Wiltshire and a below-par Brian Andersen and the gap was back to eight points.

The visitors continued to fight back and Adams came in as a tactical substitute in heat seven to reduce the gap to four.

Two shared heats followed before Oxford dre w level in heat ten with an outstanding ride from Andersen to hold off Martin Dugard for the entire four laps. Dugard was clearly not happy that he had been beaten around the Arlington bowl he likes to call his own.

Eastbourne started to pull away again but Adams showed what a class act he is with an amazing ride in heat 13 to outfox Dugard on the third lap and sneak past him. With Andersen comfortably in third place, it gave Cheetahs a 4-2 and made the gap just four points with two heats to go.

However, the home side were not to be denied, banging in two maximum heats to clinch the match emphatically.