SHEFFIELD skipper Josh Pickering came up with a magnificent Heat 15 effort to salvage a 45-45 draw at Northampton and lift his side back into the play-off places.<\/p>\n
The Foxes were on a 5-1 with Niels-Kristian Iversen and Troy Batchelor but Pickering overtook both for a match-saving 3-3 having earlier overhauled Jaimon Lidsey in Heat 13.<\/p>\n
The meeting was delayed in the early stages for track work but the UK\u2019s newest venue then staged its best meeting yet with several exciting races.<\/p>\n
Iversen and Batchelor both scored 11+1 for the home side, who picked up league points at home for the second time, whilst Pickering\u2019s (14) only defeat came to Kye Thomson in Heat 6, and Chris Holder scored 10.<\/p>\n
Sheffield manager Simon Stead said: \u201cWe probably did enough for the win, but sometimes it\u2019s just not your night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were in points scoring positions on a couple of occasions where we slipped up \u2013 but those sorts of things, you just have to roll with the punches a little bit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a step in the right direction though and I think anybody who was here, or watched on the stream, will see that we didn\u2019t down tools, we got together and we gave it our best shot and we raced to the chequered flag in every single heat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Northampton boss Chris Adams said: \u201cObviously there were a few issues right at the start, but after the work that was done it was fantastic and we saw the results of that with the racing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hope was that the new material was going to mix a bit better with the stuff we\u2019d already got, but there was just a bit too much and it was clumpy in places, so that was hard for the riders.<\/p>\n
\u201cA point for a draw is better than a loss, it\u2019s another point on the board and we\u2019ll focus on next week now.\u201d<\/p>\n