PATCHED-UP Sheffield suffered another away day to forget with a 54-38 defeat at Newcastle.
Already without injured top two Josh Grajczonek and Kyle Howarth, Tigers were dealt another late blow when Josh Bates pulled out of the meeting after struggling with a pulled neck muscle sustained at Ipswich on Friday.
And while the makeshift Sheffield side gave it their best, they were never able to recover from the hosts' early dominance.
With the scores level after two races, Newcastle then reeled off six straight heat advantages to open up a 31-17 lead.
But Tigers were only able to register one of their own in the entire meeting as they fell to a third defeat in four.
Co-promoter Peter Mole said: "It's been tough without Josh Grajczonek and Kyle as it is but then to lose Josh Bates in the build-up to the meeting made our task even more difficult.
"We had too long a tail with a couple of riders really struggling for points and when you're already running rider replacement, you can't afford to have any passengers unfortunately.
"It's been one long season and I believe tiredness is now catching up with a few of the riders.
"We've had the euphoria of winning our first league title in 15 years and yet we've still had all these extra meetings after that great night at Ipswich.
"But we have to keep plugging away until all fixtures have been completed and hopefully the boys can put on a good show at Leicester on Monday."
Tigers trail 58-32 ahead of that trip to the East Midlands in their Promotion / Relegation Race-Off; full build-up will be issued on Monday morning.
SGB CHAMPIONSHIP NEWCASTLE 54: Ludvig Lindgren 14, Steve Worrall 12+1, Robert Lambert 9, Ashley Morris 7+2, Stuart Robson 7+2, Alfie Bowtell 3+1, Ben Hopwood 2. SHEFFIELD 38: Scott Nicholls 11, Lasse Bjerre 9, Jan Graversen 8+1, Ty Proctor 8, Todd Kurtz 2+1, Georgie Wood 0, Josh Bates R/R.
