WEYMOUTH Wildcats suffered a galling 18-17 defeat to Plymouth Demons in the Southern Development League.

Contesting the meeting with just three riders, Weymouth nearly pulled off a superb result at St Boniface Arena.

Alex Spooner registered eight points for the Cats, while Stevie Anderson (7) and Mick Sutton (2) also contributed.

Speaking to Echosport, Wildcats’ co-promoter Martin Peters admitted the meeting was “a little bit of a shambles at times”.

He said: “I think if we had put a rider out in heat three we might have got a draw.

“It could’ve been two points because that would have made Plymouth put one of their riders out as well.

“We had riders going out that shouldn’t have been going out – we had to change people around.

“It was a little bit of a shambles at times, but we got through it. The worst one was Mick going out for a ride when he wasn’t due to go out for a ride.

“In heat three Stevie was actually beating William O’Keefe so we could have won it really.”

After once more fielding a squad one man light, Peters was left to rue a lack of cooperation from available riders.

He said: “It’s difficult. It was a little bit disappointing on that side but we couldn’t do anything else on that front unfortunately.

“I think the distance put a couple of people off. Some of them have packed up for the winter and they didn’t want to do any more.

“One example said ‘I’ve packed up for the winter’. But he wants to become a National League rider and there’s still teams that need riders and he turned his nose up at that.”

Peters’ attention is now focused on the Wildcats’ final meeting of the season in two weeks’ time – an away fixture against Plymouth.

He said: “It was a reserve date that Plymouth kept for the cup, but that became a free date. They’re going to do a double header. Plymouth are the home team whereas we were the home team on Friday.”

And, with a fortnight in between meetings, Peters is confident he will be able to turn out a full roster of riders.

“We could have a couple. A lot of the teams are pretty much finished.

“We’ll more than likely have Mick and Craig Nethercott if he’s recovered from his thumb injury and then it’s a case of finding a couple of riders and see if we can entice them down.

“We definitely need more southern-based riders. Hopefully we can get more interested,” he said.

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