Wolves 43 Lakeside 47

Team boss Peter Adams finally put into words the view held by beleaguered Wolves fans after this seventh home league defeat: "Prepare for the play-offs."

This is the first year in which the Elite League's bottom two will lock horns post-season.

The winners breathe a sigh of relief; the losers square up to an ambitious Premier League outfit to decide which of them enjoys top-flight status in 2009.

However the rest of this nightmare season plays out, Wolves seem certain to be in the initial shootout.

The way things are going, fans can start checking their sat navs for the route to some such far-flung destination as Somerset, Edinburgh or Workington when it comes to the crunch.

The Parrys International Wolves started brightly enough, and were eight points to the good after five races.

There has been a pall of gloom over Monmore this season – well in keeping with the acrid smoke that wafted across from the nearby industrial estate last night - as Lakeside fought back to level inside three races.

The Essex men were weakened by the injury absence of Andreas Jonsson, guest Edward Kennett giving the solitary poor performance of his seven appearances at the Green this season.

With rider-replacement barely adequate cover for another casualty in Joonas Kylmakorpi – confirmed by team manager Jon Cook after the meeting as out for the rest of the season – the Hammers were up against it in their quest to consolidate a top-two spot.

The enigmatic Jonas Davidsson went through the card and classy Aussie Adam Shields was defeated only by his machine, failing to beat the two-minute time allowance before the final heat with the match already won.

Reserve Ricky Kling was again paid for double figures and there was enough backing elsewhere to secure the points.

What of Wolves? Skipper Fredrik Lindgren, a decisive beating by the Davidsson -Shields pairing apart, roused the fans with a series of last-bend passes – none better than his heat 13 scrape past a rejuvenated Kennett that kept Wolves in the match.

Young reserve Nicolai Klindt underlined his considerable promise with a 10-point return although some of his manoeuvres on the fourth bend – he even went perilously close to clobbering the fence there in his warm-up lap – were not for the faint of heart.

Jesper B Monberg stiffened the middle order, collecting his first victory since returning to the Wolves fold.

Fellow Dane Niels-Kristian Iversen was wholly out of sorts and looked nothing like the rider whose spectacular leg-trailing blasts round the fourth bend have enlivened so many home matches this season.

Amazingly, Ales Dryml, David Howe and Kenneth Hansen all started with a win or paid win. All three then failed to beat an opponent for the rest of the night.

In a team supposedly built for strength in depth, that kind of up and down form is why Adams has accepted the inevitable. The fans are getting the maps out.