The Kent Kings will be seeking to get back to winning ways quickly after suffering a fourth consecutive home defeat on Monday when the Eastbourne Eagles flew into Central Park and delivered a knockout blow to the Sittingbourne based side's latest hopes of silverware.
In a meeting marred and then ended prematurely by a leg injury to the visiting skipper and former Kings man David Mason - the Sussex side took an early grip after the controversial exclusions of firstly Ben Morley in heat one and then the otherwise unbeaten Danny Ayres in heat five - both times in comings together with the Eagles' Kiwi number one, Bradley Wilson-Dean.
Debutant for Kent, Ben Basford had a difficult evening failing to score.
For a second match running the home side took a heavy blow right at the start conceding two maximum 1-5 reverses in the opening two heats. Morley's first bend tumble after being heavily lent on by Wilson-Dean was a nailed on 'all four back in the restart' decision at least nine times out of ten but not on this occasion and heads went down.
Danny Ayres as ever made a fist pumping fight of it and back from triumph on the world stage in Germany, James Shanes was faster than ever around a Central Park circuit with a lot more dirt on it this week - their two wins in heats 3 & 4 stemmed the tide.
But then came another controversial incident.
The visitors' ever lively Richard Andrews fell on bend four and wasn't getting up - the red lights came on just fractionally after a very heavy contact by Wilson-Dean took Ayres into the safety fence on bend one. Amazingly the referee threw not just Andrews but Ayres out of the rerun.
Another calamity in heat 8 with Andrews and Kelsey Dugard inflicting maximum damage on the Kings.
Heat 10's events overshadowed all else - the popular Mason tumbled seemingly not that heavily but obviously awkwardly and was clearly stricken. The County Ambulance was needed and a broken fibula diagnosed for the former Kent captain - in two years as a Kings rider Mason had not once fallen in such a fashion. The injury put a dampner on proceedings and also meant a 45 minutes delay making the curfew certain to end proceedings short of the 15 heats.
There was time just for Andrews to claim the notable scalp of Morley in the rerun and then Wilson-Dean to end Shanes' chance of a first ever maximum. When Dugard overtook Danno Verge on the final bend of heat 12 the match was over and the Eagles take a surely decisive 14 points lead into August's second leg of this Cup semi.
Next up at Central Park is the visit of the side the Kings defeated in the previous round of the Cup, Coventry Storm who visit in the League on Monday 6 July at 6.30pm
NATIONAL LEAGUE KO CUP Semi Final 1st leg Abandoned after 12 heats due to curfew, result stands.
KENT 28 B.Morley X 3 2 - - - - 5 J.Couzins 1 0 X R - - - 1 A.Baseby 1 2 F 3 - - - 6 D.Ayres 3 X 3 - - - - 6 J.Shanes 3 3 2 - - - - 8 B.Basford 0 0 0 0 - - - 0 D.Verge 1 M 1 0 - - - 2 Team Manager: Chris Hunt