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Soundbites: 18th September 2004
"George Stancl was a brilliant guest and he fully understood we needed to score as many points
as possible here to leave Newport holding the wooden spoon."
"I will keep going until the end of the season as I am desperate to do my bit for the team
because we are confident we can go all the way and make this an historic season."
"We were unlucky, but full credit to Ipswich. It was a brilliant meeting but we were beaten
by a great team.
Lee Richardson was superb and the way he went from third to first on the last lap of
heat nine proved wrong those who say he can't come from the back."
"We wanted to ride the meeting on September 27 because there is a stock car meeting at the
stadium on Sunday.
We advised the BSPA of a problem preparing the track for next week, especially if the
weather is bad. All they did was send a fax threatening us with a fierce penalty. They
didn't even have the courage to ring."
"We have produced some good league performances this season and are in the position we are
in on merit. But we need to get the six points available from our last two home fixtures to
reach the play-offs."
"The riders are all of a similar ability and that makes it hard to pick one out of the field -
just as it was for the Champions' Chase.
I have ridden there frequently and maybe that gives me a bit of an advantage but there are too
many good riders in the field for it to make much of a difference."
"I understand fully his family and the ambition they hold for him. But I think Rory would
be better with another year in the Premier league given his age. He would be better
leaving the Premier league as one of the top dogs. He is not in that position at
the moment, although he is doing very well."
"We're still in with an outside chance of making the top eight for the end of season play-offs
so we need to keep rattling up high scores and I thought Craig Branney was outstanding as we'd
asked him to ride as a reserve but then pushed him up to number three in the team."
"We had three choices last September, shutting down, dropping down to the Premier League or
taking a huge gamble and staying in the top flight.
It was a close thing and we knew we dare not get it wrong after failing our public in 2003."
"Sergey once again showed his ability against Oxford on Monday night and I've said to him
that he must wish he'd come over here earlier as he could be a Grand Prix rider by now.
He has been superb for us, both on and off the track, and everything about him is right. Who
knows what he could have achieved had he come to Britain 10 years ago, but commitments in
Russia don't always make things easy."
"I obviously feel flat having missed out on the play-offs - I honestly thought we could still
get there until this week.
Only pride was at stake tonight but this was also was a good win for the fans.
We never looked in any danger tonight and won comfortably. It could have been an even bigger
margin."
"He's a lively performer and could prove a key factor on the bearing of the match. We'll be
very much the same side that faced Buxton in Wednesday's Conference League match.
We are still waiting for Andre Cross to report fit from his broken thumb. Andre was hoping to
have the metal pin removed from it this week, after which he'll be in contention with the
youngsters James Clement and James Theobald for one of the two reserve berths. "
"It's brilliant we made it in such style with the bonus point. Everyone said we'd be
wooden-spoonists.
The people who at the beginning of the season didn't turn up because they thought we had a
rubbish side missed some good speedway."
"It's bad news as crossing the Solent in October is not the best of trips and they won't
bring many fans up here for the home leg.
Therefore, from a business point of view, Workington would probably be a better bet.
On the track, we've already lost on aggregate to Comets, but did beat the Isle of Wight away
when they were under-strength. But let's not forget we haven't beaten Exeter to get to the final yet."
"The boys have been magnificent in riding so many meetings in such a short time. If it wasn't
for all the postponements we would have made the play-offs easily.
We have beaten all the top teams and crushed league champions Poole last night. There has
been so much wasted effort and it is such a shame we hadn't had a little more time."
This article was first published on 18th September 2004
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