SHEFFIELD’S second trip of the season to Newcastle turned out to be a painful one as they went ‘crashing’ to a 47-37 defeat.

The Tigers won the Premier Trophy match at the Byker track earlier in the year, but there was to be no happy Tyneside return in the league fixture.

And to add to their misery they suffered injuries to Richard Hall and Paul Cooper following a frightening high-speed crash in heat 14.

Neither injury is thought to be serious, but with both riders requiring hospital attention it left no ambulance cover for the final race and the meeting was abandoned – but the result will stand!

The Window Centre Tigers got off to a slow start and falls when in scoring positions in the early races for Ricky Ashworth and Hugh Skidmore didn’t help matters, which left them trailing 16-8 after heat 4.

Ashworth made amends to win a shared heat 5 and after another Diamonds 4-2 in heat 6, Chris Mills and Cooper then reduced the deficit with a 4-2 of their own in heat 8.

Joel Parsons and Hall took full-advantage of Kenni Larsen’s tapes offence in heat 10 to register a 5-1, but Newcastle repaid the compliment in heat 12 and led 40-32 with three races remaining.

Ashworth led all the way to win heat 13 ahead of Larsen and Mark Lemon, but with heat 14 awarded as a Diamonds 4-2 following the accident involving Hall and Cooper, it wrapped up the league points for the home side.

NEWCASTLE 47: Jason King 10+1, Mark Lemon 9+1, Kenni Larsen 9, Trent Leverington 8, Rene Bach 5+1, Derek Sneddon 4, Adam McKinna 2+1

SHEFFIELD 37: Ricky Ashworth 8, Joel Parsons 8, Chris Mills 6+1, Josh Auty 6, Paul Cooper 6, Richard Hall 2+1, Hugh Skidmore 1+1