Proud – I most certainly am. Although the Witches were hit by injuries to Taylor Poole and Chris Mills, we had given ourselves a big advantage by winning in the first leg in my back yard at Ipswich.

The six point lead we held gave us a strong psychological advantage but the Witches came with all guns blazing and clearly were going all out not only to wipe out our points advantage but to take the tie overall.

Whether they could have achieved that is history now and we are through to the cup semi-finals, coming up against a tough one in Workington, who knocked out table-topping Sheffield, so we clearly have a battle ahead of us to make the final once we have agreed dates for the clashes.

We had solid scoring from one to seven which even had Steve Mallett smiling, even though with bonus points he had 66 points to pay out for on top of the paid 55 in the first leg!

It was good to see this and the score could have been even more but for Todd shedding a chain while leading his first race. This led to some hard work in his pit corner and in the original staging of heat four, when the crash happened, he was mounted on Jason Doyle’s second bike as his was not fully repaired in time – that shows the great team spirit we have in the Wasps camp.

We all help each other whenever help is needed and support and encourage each other all night. As captain, this is great to see and be involved with.

In one race when Charlie and Robin secured a vital 5-1 maximum heat win, with Charlie team riding him home, they returned to the pits and our ever smiling Dane came straight over and checked out Robin’s frame as he had noticed it wasn’t riding correctly. They discovered that it was bent – another great example of our team sprit and support for each other.

Naturally, we know that but for the Witches injuries we would have faced a tougher battle than we did, but I still believe we would have been too strong for my home town team and we must ensure we keep up our winning ways.

With no World Team Cup clashes, as we had faced in the previous two weeks, and with the weather on our side and the away win to boost the fans’ morale it was pleasing to see a bigger crowd supporting us and making lots of noise. That certainly spurs us all on as a team.

Tom Mallett has also put together some rider songs for us when we win along with some other tunes for when we get 5-1s, and our announcer Jason will be playing these – hopefully as often as possible so that you get to know them.

We also appreciate your cheers as Laurence chips in on the radio microphone as we hit the last bend and aim for the chequered flag.

Anyway, I started by saying I was proud and to be able to do my shopping in Ipswich this week holding my head high was certainly personally pleasing.

I hope that feeling continues for the rest of the season!