Battered Bjerre fit for semi-final push.

The Newcastle Diamonds's 18-year-old star Kenneth Bjerre is eagerly awaiting Saturday's second leg of the Knock-Out Cup quarter-final against the Stoke Potters even though a crash meant he missed half of last Monday's extremely stormy first leg.

Newcastle will be taking a commanding 24-point lead to Stoke's Loomer Road track (3rd August - 7:30pm start) after winning 57-33 at Brough Park.

Bjerre's first-leg ended when he was awarded the victory in heat five after Stoke's captain Paul Pickering was excluded for forcing Bjerre heavily into the safety fence on the final bend.

The teenager suffered a cut tongue and bruising to his left leg and chest but he was treated at the track and has not broken any bones so he's ready for the return leg, saying: "I'm still planning to ride for my Swedish team on Thursday and then I'm really looking forward to going to Stoke before I'm on standby for the Danish World Cup squad next week."

Newcastle co-promoter and team manager George English knows his team should qualify comfortably for the semi-finals but realizes there's still some work to do, saying: "We've put ourselves in a brilliant position and we just have to finish the job on Saturday. We lost by only two points at Stoke in the Premier Trophy back in March and Kenneth scored just five points that night so the Potters are going to have to ride well to catch us."

"We're not worried about any bad feeling left over from Monday's first leg, especially the battle involving our reserve Derek Sneddon and Stoke's reserve Will Beveridge."

The referee on Monday, Dave Dowling, confirmed that he would fining and reporting Beveridge for the punch-up after their crash but wasn't punishing Derek. "I've got no problem with sending out Derek out for any race against Beveridge. There's no way I'm letting one hothead on the other team affect our line-up." Concluded English.

Newcastle must switch round a couple of riders for the second leg at Stoke as the new averages for August take effect so high-scoring reserve Richard Juul moves up to a second-string role, swapping places with Wayne Carter.

Juul's best ever score in more than a decade of British speedway - an outstanding 19 points in the first leg against Stoke - took him to an incredible 53 points and seven bonuses in his last four matches.