Glasgow Tigers v Edinburgh Monarchs

When your luck?s out, it?s out and there wasn?t much respite on our second visit to Ashfield in three weeks for the phase two fixture.

There wasn?t much passing but the sting was taken out of the match in any case when we lost Matthew Wethers and Kyle Howarth early on.

The track was greasy for the early races, and the third bend bump troubled all the riders, right from the first heat when even Joe Screen was struggling. It was however a home 5-1 with little challenge from our pair.

Adam McKinna was standing in for Theo Pijper and Kyle Howarth managed to hold him off for second spot in heat 2, with Morris well ahead.

Rajkowski and Tully contested the lead round the first two bends in heat 3, but on the third bend where Andrew was injured last year he came off, right in the path of Matthew. Both fell heavily, Andrew rose fairly quickly though he was limping, but Matthew was down for a while.

Eventually he left in an ambulance, and with Andrew excluded we obviously lost a 5-1 in the rerun. At that point our prospects for the day looked bleak and our thoughts were with Matthew.

We managed to share heat 4 behind Grieves, and Kevin Wolbert scored 4 on his TR in heat 5. Kalle Katajisto held third at one stage but was passed and retired.

Next disaster befell Kyle Howarth, chasing the home pair in heat 6 but coming off heavily on that third corner. His injury was to his hand.

Craig Cook had been at the rear after a first bend wobble, but he gated in the rerun and led all the way for his best Ashfield race to date.

The next two were lost 5-1, Kalle going on his own in heat 8 with Kyle Howarth now out of the meeting as well as Matthew.

Craig took the next TR and led heat 9, with Byron in third. A 7-2 maybe? No, Byron dropped it on the pits bend, and Craig fell into his old habit of riding too tight and let Sweetman go round him. So only a 4-4.

Tully split the Tigers? opening pair in heat 10, then lo and behold, a real surprise in heat 11. OK Wolbert winning wasn?t a major shock but Kalle suddenly came to life and rode a bold outside line round the pits bend, getting ahead of James Grieves. A 5-1!

We then saw the best of Andrew with a fast win, giving Morris his first defeat.

Cook took a second in heat 13 but Wolbert trailed off the poorest gate which is the inside. Byron was on his own in heat 14 but managed to get a second ahead of McKinna, and we finished up with our second 5-1 from Wolbert and Cook over Sweetman and Rajkowski, not exactly the strongest pair Glasgow could have fielded.

Amazingly we had the three fastest times of the day, the quickest of all being Kevin in the final heat.