Comets must shoot across to Berwick; SPEEDWAY.

AFTER a fractious week of negotiations with Workington Speedway, the British Speedway Promoters' Association has ordered the Comets to appear at Berwick tonight in the Young Shield semi final, writes LAWRENCE HEPPELL.

The second leg will be at Workington next Saturday night once again at 7pm over in Cumbria.

There are a change or two in both teams with rider replacement once again covering the injured Tero Aarnio''s rides, but Guglielmo Franchetti is also out tonight as he''s the wild card entry into the Italian Grand Prix, so Berwick have turned to their own asset base to cover with Greg Blair coming back into the side for another blast.

Michal Makovsky, now only 13 points off equalling Steve McDermott''s all-time Berwick points scoring record, Josef Franc, Paul Clews, Tamas Sike and Stanislaw Burza make up the expected Berwick line-up.

Workington, however, have been ravaged by injury and retirement and have an unfamiliar squad led by No 1 from Newcastle Diamonds, the top-form Aussie Mark Lemon with his Diamonds'' reserve partnering him at No 2, Trent Leverington, while they will also use guest Ben Taylor for Craig Cook, who is away on National League Riders' Championship duties. The two clubs met last season in the Young Shield Final with the Comets taking the victory in the final couple of races of the 30-heat contest raising the Shielfield Park roof, so the Bandits are on a revenge mission.

Bandits team manager Dave Peet said: "We know what Comets are capable of and I think with their guests they could be stronger than their usual line-up, so we will have to make a big start tonight."

BERWICK BANDITS: 1. Michal Makovsky, 2. Tero Aarnio - Rider replacement, 3. Paul Clews (Captain), 4. Josef Franc, 5. Stanislaw Burza, 6. Tamas Sike, 7. Greg Blair.

WORKINGTON COMETS: 1. Mark Lemon (guest), 2. Trent Leverington (guest), 3. Adrian Rymel, 4. Richard Lawson - Rider replacement, 5. Andre Compton (captain), 6. Ben Taylor (guest), 7. John Branney.