Graham Drury hails Birmingham Brummies and Newcastle

Drury felt both teams were in fine form at Perry Barr

Birmingham Brummies boss Graham Drury praised both teams after his side won the first leg of their promotion play-off semi-final against Newcastle.

The Brummies led by 10 points with two heats to go at Perry Barr, but ended with a slender advantage of 48-44.

Drury told BBC WM: "I'm disappointed but it was a fantastic advert for Premier League racing.

"Every single one of the riders gave 100 per cent and you can't ask for more than that."

Drury's team built a 10-point lead by heat eight, and were 45-35 ahead after heat 13, but Chris Kerr's accident in heat 14 led to a Newcastle 5-1, and the visiting number one Kenni Larsen led home a Diamonds 4-2 in the last heat.

"In these sorts of competitions, it's not winning, it's by how much you win," said Drury.

"I went on record prior to the start of the meeting, that we were looking for a minimum of ten points.

"We haven't got that, we had a few problems during the night we tried to keep under wraps. Steve Johnston wrenched his back quite considerably, he's been in absolute agony, but we didn't want to broadcast that too much.

"I think there's no doubt we outscored them at reserve. The crash in the race that Chris Kerr was in, we could maybe rue.

"But to have a good speedway match takes two good teams. Newcastle are a good team and we're a good team as well.

"We're disappointed only to win by four but hopefully we can pull something out of the bag on Sunday at their place."

The teams are in the middle of a group of meetings against one another. On Sunday they will ride the second leg of the promotion play-off, followed immediately by the first leg of the Knockout Cup semi-final. The teams return to Perry Barr for the second leg of the cup tie on Wednesday, 13 October.

Drury said: "It's really a unique set of circumstances in speedway. But we've proven tonight that we can outfight them in many departments.

"Maybe, with not having a match last week, a lot of the lads have gone two weeks without a match and maybe a few of them were a bit ring-rusty. But that won't be the case next Wednesday, that's for sure."