Disappointing and disheartening loss for the Plymouth Gladiators

It was a disappointing and disheartening loss for the Plymouth Gladiators Friday night (5th July), as the Kent Kings took victory in a last heat decider winning 44-46.

The Gladiators had a hard task ahead of them from the start with running the rider replacement facility for injured David Wallinger, but then the Gladiators suffered another blow when Nathan Stoneman was ruled out of the meeting after a heat 7 crash.

Team Manager Mattie Bates said “losing Nathan was a massive blow for us, the track seemed to be catching some riders out and unfortunately that included Nathan.

5 riders against 7 was always going to be a tough task, but Ben Wilson, Adam Extance and Adam Sheppard really stepped up scoring 35 out of the 44 points between the three of them”.

Bates admitted his team really need to regroup and start to turn their season around if they have any hopes of making the National League playoffs.

Bates said “the curse of last season seems to have stayed with us, it seems every other meeting something is going against us. I couldn’t be prouder of the teams efforts and we’ve been really unlucky with some decisions but we need to find a little extra something from somewhere and just push on a little more”.