Lynn Stars 56 Rye House 37

TEAM manager Rob Lyon is backing the Money Centre Stars to make progress in this Premier League play-off semi-final after Lynn came out on top in an incident-packed first-leg match at the Norfolk Arena on Wednesday.

The teams meet again in the decider at Hoddesdon tomorrow and Lyon believes that a 19-point advantage should be enough for the Stars.

"Ideally I would have liked 20 or more points, but I'll settle for 19," he said. "Our game plan is to go there looking for a win and while that may be a tough call I think we can keep it fairly close.

"On our travels in the league we've only had one heavy defeat and that was at Edinburgh back in May. Apart from that we've scored well and we only lost by eight at Rye House in August."

At one stage Lynn looked as if they would cruise to a comfortable victory, but Premier League Riders' Champion, Tai Woffinden, scored a hat-trick of wins for Rye House after the interval.

The fixture attracted Lynn's best crowd of the season and there was a 15-minute delay to the start as a long queue built up at the turnstiles – and once the action got underway there was another hold-up when Rye House rider Stefan Ekberg fell heavily in the first race.

Ekberg looked out of shape going into the pits turn on the second lap and careered straight into the fence. After lengthy treatment on the track and in the first aid room, he was taken to hospital for a check-up to a possible back injury.

That incident left Rye House with only their reserves to cover for the loss of a key rider and the initiative was immediately with the home side.

The Stars banged in three 5-1 results in the opening six races, with the superb team riding of Tomas Topinka and Simon Lambert in Heat 5 perhaps the pick of the action as they kept dangerman Chris Neath at bay.

Rye House promptly gave Woffinden a tactical ride in Heat 7 which was worth double points, but he was held off by Topinka and the Rockets were restricted to a 5-3 advantage.

Lynn had called up talented Boston rider Joe Haines as a guest for the injured Shaun Tacey and the teenager was soon among the points.

In Heat 10, however, Haines and Doolan found themselves out-gunned. It was Woffinden who did the damage, picking himself up from a heavy fall after first bend bunching and making the most of the re-start to blast past the home pairing.

And in Heat 11 the visitors had another race winner as Neath led from start to finish.