Drury broadside for poor Brummies

Brummies have lost two out of three Trophy matches this season

Birmingham boss Graham Drury is blaming his team's mechanical frailties for the 47-43 defeat against Newport in the Premier Trophy tie at Perry Barr.

The Brummies squandered an early eight-point lead after a series of bike failures proved costly.

"It's no good having the best team in the world if your machinery is not up to scratch," Drury told BBC WM.

"We need to go back to the drawing board - basically the riders have got to spend more time in the workshop."

Veteran skipper Jason Lyons was the one rider to produce his best form, ending the evening with 14 points and combining for a couple of 5-1s with Richard Sweetman in the early heats.

I always said this team would take a little bedding down - it's a young team

Birmingham boss Graham Drury

Birmingham still led by six points with five races to go, only for the South Wales club, inspired by the outstanding Mark Lemon and Jordan Frampton, to pull away.

"No excuses, Newport came and they were a very good team - they deserved to win on the night," said Drury.

"I would expect to start the season a lot better than we have done. Having said that I always said this team would take a little bit of bedding down as it's basically a young team."

Drury will now look at tweaking the pairings to try and avoid the sort of collapse that has put their chances of reaching the Trophy semi-finals in jeopardy.

Lyons' chief support came from Sweetman and Tomasz Piszcz with seven points apiece while Ludvig Lindgren added five.

Lemon anchored the Wasps with 15 points, Frampton adding 11 and Paul Fry eight.