GARY Havelock believes that two controversial refereeing decisions cost his side dearly as they lost at home to League Champions Poole, writes Observer speedway reporter Robin Allen.
Bees suffered their first defeat of the season at home to great rivals Poole last Friday in what was an action-packed meeting.
But it was overshadowed by two incidents with Chris Harris earning a disqualification in Heat 3 as he was adjudged to have brought down Maciej Janowski going into the final bend.
And James Sarjeant rounded Newman to lead Heat 12 with Jason Garrity attempting to join him but having made what appeared a clean pass on the Poole reserve, Newman fell on the third bend, bringing Sarjeant down with him and Garrity was harshly disqualified.
The two incidents happened at crucial stages of the meeting as Poole had got three 5-1’s in the opening four races and then in heat 12 it was a big blow to break up the fast-track partnership of Garrity and Sarjeant.
“I think but for two possibly three unbelievably ridiculous refereeing decisions we’d still of actually won.” said Havelock.
“Janowski has one if not two looks from coming out the corner to half way up the straight so he knows ‘Bomber’ (Harris) was there and he knows ‘Bomber’s’ coming and like I said to the ref since when did ‘Bomber’ become a dirty rider?
“He didn’t and he never has and never will be, he’s a hard rider, he’s not a dirty rider.
“With the Newman incident when you shut off at speed really the back wheel slows down and as it slows down it actually catches more grip than when it’s spinning and sends you straight and that’s what happened and he hit the back of Sarj (Sarjeant).
“If you take the first incident with Harris and Janowski that would have been a 3-3 instead of a 5-1 to them and also that incident in heat 12.
“That would have been a 5-1 to us instead of a 3-3 in my humble mathematical skills we would have won by a point because you would of took four points off their score and put four points onto our score we’d have won 45-44.”
Despite the setback there were many positives for Havelock to take from the meeting, with Kylmakorpi establishing a great middle order partnership with Danny King, Harris continued his fine early season form and Sarjeant showed his strength bouncing back from two heavy falls.
Havelock added: “We don’t become a bad team just because of one blip.
“Joonas coming into the middle order has been a huge plus. He’s been around plenty of time and he’s got the experience and it’s great that he’s come in and hit the ground running.
“Sarjeant picking himself up from those two huge crashes like he did winning heat 12 was pretty special because Newman is probably one of the top three fast-trackers in the country.
“Look how many we lost at home last year was it four or five and still made the final.
“It’s certainly nothing for the fans to worry about because there’s nothing I’m going to be overly worried about. I just said to the lads it’s a blip nothing more we’ll come back and regroup.”
