Mildenhall Fen Tigers 29, Berwick Bandits 61

After three straight defeats in the Premier Trophy, the Tigers looked to get their 2008 Premier League campaign off to a good start with victory against an injury-hit Berwick Bandits side.

The afternoon got off to a flying start as the visitors' number one Adrian Rymel broke the Premier League track record with a lightning quick time of 50 seconds, as he grabbed the first of four heat wins.

After three heats, the scores remained level at 9-9, but the Tigers' bad luck began when young Dane Casper Wortmann saw his chain snap mid-race in heat four, leaving Berwick to take their third win in four heats.

Mildenhall's plight went from bad to worse when team captain Kaj Laukkanen suffered a break to his bike frame in heat 10 as the visitors chalked up five consecutive 5-1 victories to take the scores to 22-44 at the break.

Although the match was effectively over as a contest, the Tigers managed to record their second heat win of the afternoon courtesy of Laukkanen, but Berwick's impressive gating saw them start again where they left off with two more 5-1 heat victories to bring the final scores to 29-61.

Laurence Rogers, Tigers team manager, said: "It was one of those days – they gated and we didn't. We were just second best.

"The new boys we have need time to settle in and, from here, it can only be onwards and upwards."

Promoter Simon Barton added: "At the end of the day we weren't at the races. There are no excuses."

Mildenhall Fen Tigers: Kaj Laukkanen (c) 6, John Oliver 7, Jan Gravesen 6, Casper Wortmann 2, Mark Baseby 5, James Cockle 3.

Berwick Bandits: Adrian Rymel (c) 14, Henning Bager 10, Tero Aarnio 10, Michal Makovsky 14, Norbert Magosi 9, Adam Mckinna 4.

On Sunday, the Fen Tigers welcome the Birmingham Brummies who boast ex-Tigers Jason Lyons, Kyle Legault, Lee Smart and Adam Roynon in their expected line-up. Tapes go up at West Row at 4.30.

Laurence Rogers said: "There is a hard task in front of us with four ex-Fen Tigers and Phil Morris lining up for Birmingham.

"We do need to improve our performance and our number one Kaj Laukkanen is taking a workshop session with the rest of the team to help sort out bike preparation."

Mildenhall were beaten 60-30 in the corresponding fixture at Birmingham and will be looking for an immediate response to the poor performance in their first meeting against Berwick.

Simon Barton said: "Obviously everyone connected to the club was feeling down after Sunday's result and we will be looking to bounce back with a much better performance.

"It was always our intention to use the Trophy campaign to give the lads new to British speedway time to adapt.

"Unfortunately, the weather intervened and we started directly with the league campaign. In addition one of our new riders, Grant Tregoning, is still in New Zealand thanks to the visa red tape."

Home fans are also likely to have a longer wait to see new captain Robbie Kesler in action at West Row.

He suffered concussion and injured his neck in a fall at Peterborough in the first match of the season and is unlikely to be involved on Sunday.

Expected teams – Mildenhall: 1 Kaj Laukannen, 2 To be confirmed, 3 Jan Graversen, 4 Robbie Kessler or RR, 5 Casper Wortmann, 6 Mark Baseby, 7 James Cockle.

Birmingham: 1 Kyle Legault, 2 James Birkinshaw, 3 Jason Lyons, 4 Adam Roynon, 5 Phil Morris, 6 Jack Hargreaves, 7 Lee Smart.