SHEFFIELD boss Simon Stead admits his side’s away performances have cost them a place in the Championship play-offs.

Tigers outside hopes of snatching a top four finish were officially ended as they suffered a heavy 58-32 defeat at Edinburgh on Friday.

The Owlerton outfit struggled at Armadale with Danny King and Broc Nicol providing the vast majority of the team’s points between them.

But Stead has pinpointed other fixtures on the road as a contributing factor to them missing out on an end-of-season shot at glory.

“Yes we’re disappointed with the final score at Edinburgh because we did still have a feint glimmer of hope when we arrived here,” Stead said.

“But we haven’t missed out on the play-offs just because we lost here - unfortunately we haven’t been good enough away from home all season.

“You look at the away meetings at Birmingham, Somerset and Eastbourne in particular, we should probably have won all three of those and we only ended up with a total of two league points from those three.

“So that mixed with the fact we did drop a few points at home as well is the reason we won’t be competing in the play-offs this year.”

King and Nicol apart, Tigers struggled to make any sort of real impact against an Edinburgh side renowned for being dominant around their home circuit.

Sheffield were still within eight points at the mid-meeting stage before conceding five 5-1s in the final seven races.

Tigers round off their Championship campaign at Glasgow on Saturday (7.30) and Stead hopes his riders can give the travelling supporters something to cheer about.

“Yes we can’t now mathematically make the play-offs but we’ve still got a meeting to go,” Stead said.

“We’ve got a good contingent of supporters who’ve made the trip to Scotland and while we’ve found things tough on the road all season, I hope we can end the season on a
high note for them more than anything.”

FRIDAY’S SCORERS
EDINBURGH 58: Sam Masters 14+1, Ricky Wells 14+1, Josh Pickering 8+2, Cameron Heeps 7, James Sarjeant 6+3, William Lawson 6+3, Connor Coles 3.
SHEFFIELD 32: Broc Nicol 12+1, Danny King 11, Matthew Wethers 5, Todd Kurtz 3, Justin Sedgmen 1, Josh MacDonald 0, Zaine Kennedy 0.

SATURDAY’S TEAMS (6.30):
GLASGOW: Craig Cook, Mikkel B Andersen R/R, Claus Vissing, Sam Jensen, Rasmus Jensen, Connor Bailey, Kyle Bickley.
SHEFFIELD: Danny King, Josh MacDonald, Justin Sedgmen, Todd Kurtz, Jake Allen, Zaine Kennedy, Broc Nicol.