Countdown to the final: Jake wants to build up a lead

HENDERSON INSURANCE Scunthorpe Scorpions’ in-form star Jake Allen is looking for a big lead for his side, when the club entertain the Workington Comets in the first leg of the Knockout Cup Final at Scunthorpe’s Eddie Wright Raceway in Normanby Road on Sunday (5pm).

The 23-year-old Australian said: “I don’t think it’s any secret that we’ll be looking to build up a large lead from the home leg again when we race Workington in the final – just as we did against Peterborough in the semi-final.

“When Workington come to us, we’ll try to smash them, just like they’ll try to do the same to us when we go there.

“If we could get a similar result as we did against Peterborough (59-31), that would be great. But even if we build up, for example, a 15-to-20-point lead, it means we can go from Workington with a little leeway and not too much pressure.

“The cup final will be our final two meetings of the season, and we’ve not won anything as yet. But, hopefully, we can give the fans who have stuck by us throughout the season something to celebrate.”

Allen also reflected on the second leg of the semi-final at Peterborough last weekend, where Scorpions clinched a 98-82 aggregate victory, despite going down by 39-51 on the evening. He top-scored for Scorpions with 11 points.

“It was a little bit worrying at one stage, because Peterborough were pulling a lot of points back”, he admits.

“But we had a team talk, got ourselves going and we pulled through in the end. People will look at the results and see that I top-scored for Scunthorpe, but at one-point mid-meeting, I felt it was going away from me – I didn’t have quite the right set-up. It was a hard-grafting night.”

A key race for Scorpions after a poor start to the meeting was a 5-1 from Allen and Jason Garrity in Heat 7. By the time the same pairing took a 4-2 from Heat 10, Scorpions were closing in on a final place.

“Jason and myself are good for heat advantages as a pairing.

“Dave Peet, our team manager, put the pressure on us before each of those races, to make sure we knew we needed a big result from them, and we got a 5-1 and a 4-2.

“We had to work for it, but as a team we did our job, and we held on to win by a good margin on aggregate.”

* ON SUNDAY, as well as the first leg of the Knockout Cup, Scunthorpe will also host the British 125cc Final, which will take place in the second half at Eddie Wright Raceway. The full line-up will be revealed in due course, as will the guest for Scorpions’ injured star Josh Auty.