Premier League

Somerset Rebels 59, Workington Comets 31

THE Rebels completed their regular league season with a convincing victory over Workington, who, like the Rebels, will be in the 6-team Play-Off that get underway later this month that will determine the 2012 Premier League Champions.

Jason Doyle took a hefty looking tumble in the first turn of the opening heat but got to his feet and in the re-run, Alex Davies helped give a Rebels 5-1 heat win.

Workington fought back with a heat advantage in the reserves race, this coming after Somerset's Kyle Newman was excluded for causing Comets Ashley Morris to fall.

Workington suffered further injury woes when Tero Aarnio came off worse when all four riders tangled going into the opening turn of heat five and could no longer race.

A second successive maximum heat win for the Doyle/Davies combination in heat six saw the Comets reach for the 'black and white' double point option, but with 300 metres to go the Dane's bike shed a chain to gift the Rebels their third maximum race win of the night.

Davies won heat eight with consummate ease, Jesper Monberg opened his 'win' account for the Rebels in heat nine and yet another maximum heat win for the unstoppable Doyle/Davies gave the home side a virtually unassailable 22-point lead Workington gave their final throw of the dice in heat 11 with Richard Lawson taking the Comets second attempt of the tactical ride but Newman and Claus Vissing swept past him to claim the win.

A fifth maximum race win in heat 13 confirmed Jason Doyle's second successive maximum score, following on from his 'full house' against Sheffield last week, and while Workington did gain the scant consolation of a maximum race win of their own in heat 15, it served only to deny Vissing and Davies their own meeting maximums and to stop the Rebels from rattling up and 60-point score for the second week in a row.

With league matters now complete, the Rebels will have to sit back and see how other matches unfold over the coming week before their final league position is confirmed, though all that will count for nothing as they head into the Championship deciding play-offs.

Prior to that, Somerset have the matter of their League Cup semi-final to occupy their thoughts, the first leg of which will be staged at the Oaktree Arena on Wednesday.