SGB Championship
Play-off semi-final second leg
Somerset Rebels 48, Glasgow Tigers 42
Aggregate: Somerset 87, Glasgow 93

PAIRS champions Craig Cook and Rasmus Jensen conspired in heat 13 to end the Somerset Rebels' 20th anniversary season at the Oaktree Arena on Wednesday night, writes Stephen Allen.

As the chasing Nick Morris crashed out, so too did the Rebels' mathematical hopes of reaching the play-off final

Trailing by 12 points after their 51-39 defeat in Tuesday night's first leg in Glasgow, the Rebels made the most wondrous of starts to the meeting – Chris Harris blasting clear while Anders Rowe ably fended off Cook in heat one.

That accounted for one third of the deficit and by heat five the aggregate gap between the two sides had been halved to just six points.

But the Tigers regained their grasp of the tie and collected a brace of 4-2 advantages from the next two heats, leaving the Rebels the mammoth task of having to wipe out a 10-point gap from the remaining eight races.

Although Harris and Rowe (heat 10) and Rory Schlein and Nathan Stoneman (heat 12) were able to spring heat advantages, the Tigers countered in heat 11 when Cook collected his first win of the night.

Any faint hopes of producing the comeback needed were totally extinguished when, for the third time in the tie, Cook and Jensen paired up and proved to be unbeatable, although Morris made them work hard for it, so much so that he couldn’t retain control and went crashing down on the final bend of the second lap.

Once referee Chris Durno awarded the heat it was curtains for the Rebels, leaving team manager Garry May to admit: "We just left ourselves too much to do from the first leg.

"We gave it our best and in the end that wasn't enough, but fair play to Glasgow as they approached the meeting the right way.

"We gave ourselves the best possible start with Chris and Anders setting us off perfectly, but we couldn't find enough heat advantages after that.

"It's been a hard season but an enjoyable one.

"Of course we would have liked to have won the title in our 20th season but now the hard work starts as we have to look to build again for 2020 and find the key to the door for our 21st campaign!"

Scores
Somerset (48) - C.Harris 11+1, A.Rowe 5+1, R.Schlein 14, N.Covatti 5+1, N.Morris 6, N.Stoneman 7+2, L.Harris 0
Glasgow (42) - C.Cook 9, M.Andersen 0, C.Vissing 7+1, S.Jensen 7, R.Jensen 11+1, C.Bailey 2+1, K.Bickley 6