By Graham Hambly - Dorset Echo

Weymouth face an uphill task in the Devon and Dorset Trophy following their 61-29 defeat at Plymouth on Friday evening. It leaves them with a massive deficit to turn around in the deciding leg at the Wessex Stadium this evening (Saturday, 7.15pm). Team manager Jem Dicken admitted: "We did not do anywhere near as well as we thought we would. We suffered from a few gremlins, but we were beaten by a better side. Plymouth is a hard place to come for a visiting team."

Although falling eight points behind in the opening three heats, Weymouth rallied and restricted the Devils to a six-point advantage after heat eight. A turning point came in heat nine, however, when Jay Herne took a nasty tumble while trying to find a way around the home pairing of Tom Brown and Ben Hopwood on the last bend. Instead of maintaining the impressive start that saw him win his first two races, Herne crashed into the fence, leaving Brown and Hopwood to take a 5-1 at the expense of Tim Webster. That signalled an onslaught by the home side, who took maximum points from six of the final seven races.

It was clear it was not going to be Weymouth's evening when Jon Armstrong took a tactical ride in heat 11, but trailed home third behind Nicki Glanz and Paul Starke. Herne, the only Wildcat to take the chequered flag all evening, was back out in heat 13 but once again came to grief on the fourth bend. However, Armstrong had already retired and Herne was able to remount and take third place behind Seemond Stephens and Nicki Glanz.

Alex McLeod, replacing the injured Kyle Newman at reserve, had a miserable evening, failing to finish his first two rides and being penalised for a tapes offence in heat 14. He went off a 15-metre handicap to complete his third compulsory ride but trailed home last. Weymouth's other reserve Tim Webster contributed a respectable seven points from five rides, including a couple of second places against his former club. But the final blow came in the last heat when Herne was leading from Glanz and Kyle Hughes only to fall again on the fourth bend, gifting the home side their seventh maximum of the evening.

Matt Bates takes over from McLeod at number seven this evening and Dicken says: "We will do our best to claw back the points and I look forward to what promises to be a good entertaining meeting."

Full heat details are available here and match photos here