Peterborough Panthers improve, but they remain pointless in the Premiership

Benjamin Basso top scored for Panthers in Sheffield

After their heavy thumping at Belle Vue on Monday, this was a much improved display from the Crendon Panthers.In fact, Rob Lyon’s side headed into the final race with the chance of claiming a consolation league point - if they could find a heat advantage.But Chris Harris’ efforts were to no avail as he crashed out whilst chasing Sheffield’s Jack Holder as home man Tobiasz Musielak wrapped up a 15-point maximum for the hosts.The Panthers kept things close in the first half of the meeting with six shared races in the opening eight heats.They fell 10 points behind after Heat Nine though, but a 4-2 from Michael Palm Toft and Scott Nicholls in Heat 11 brought them back into contention.Sheffield sealed the win in Heat 13, but a 5-1 from Danish duo Benjamin Basso and Hans Andersen kept the Panthers’ hopes of taking a league point alive.It wasn’t to be though for the defending Champions who now turn their attentions to their first home fixture of the season on Monday (May 9, 7.30) against Belle Vue.Said Lyon: "It was a much, much better performance on the night than Monday which is a bonus, which is a positive going forward."Sheffield are a tough team this year, they’re strong all the way through and Musielak was on fire tonight."We were hanging onto their coattails for pretty much most of the match and I thought we were in for a point, certainly two thirds of the way through we started coming back into it."But fair play to Sheffield they just pulled away again."You look down the scorechart and all the boys have scored points - we could just probably do with a couple more out of them."Benjamin was excellent down at reserve again and he’s taken Bjarne’s (Pedersen) position with easy really."As I always say though, we win and lose as a team and this team has still got enough in it to build a top four challenge, no doubt about that."SHEFFIELD 51: Tobiasz Musielak 15, Jack Holder 11+2, Adam Ellis 10, Connor Mountain 6+2, Kyle Howarth 5+2, Craig Cook 2+2, Stefan Nielsen 2.PETERBOROUGH 39: Benjamin Basso 12, Chris Harris 7, Michael Palm Toft 6+1, Ulrich Ostergaard 5+1, Scott Nicholls 5, Hans Andersen 3+2, Jordan Palin 1+1.