BURY Cycle Speedway club finished third at the Northern and Scottish League play-offs for the National Team Cup in the final at Astley and Tyldesley on Sunday.

The meeting saw the top four northern clubs – the hosts joined by Bury, Hull and Edinburgh – battling it out for a place in the final against the other three regional teams in two weeks time.

Each club had to field eight riders split into an A and B team based on their average scoring ability during the current season's matches.

Bury’s A team were Kris Ramsden, Kaysar Mohammadi, Adam Turnbull and Neil Howarth, with the B team Harry Radford, Danny Taylor, Eryk Motala, Steve Mann, and Dawar Mohammadi as reserve.

The B teams started the 32-heat match off, with Astley scoring 13 points from the four heats, Edinburgh 11, Bury 10, and Hull 6.

The next four heats were the A teams, and Edinburgh narrowed the gap to one point moving on to 24 points behind Astley's 25, with Bury in third place on 18.

Astley took 12 points from the third group of heats but Edinburgh scored 15, putting them one point ahead with Bury still holding third.

The fourth round of heats saw Astley take maximum scores, and move into the lead again on 53, with Edinburgh on 48 and Bury still in third on 36.

Edinburgh scored 12 points in the fifth round of heats but Astley could only score nine, closing the gap down to one point again.

Once again Astley hit back in round six, moving three points clear on 74 points to Edinburgh’s 71.

The penultimate round of heats saw Astley take another maximum score and move on to 90 points, with Edinburgh now on 79.

The last round of heats saw Edinburgh pull back to 93 points to Astley's 100 total, but the hosts won the play-off and book their place in the National final.

Bury finished third on 70 points, clear of Hull on 53.

Bury’s top scorer for the A team was Kaysar Mohammadi, on 12 points, and for the B team Danny Taylor, on 13 points

Other Bury scorers: Harry Radford 9, Eryk Motala 9, Kris Ramsden 8, Neil Howarth 6, Dawar Mohammadi 4, Steve Mann 3.

Ramsden's score was held back by a machine failure in his last ride making him unable to finish.

Radford and Motala both rode well, having no last-place finishes between their eight rides.

Turnbull also had bike problems which lowered his score.