Edinburgh Monarchs v Workington Comets

With five wins in their first six starts of the new season, the next scheduled visitors to Armadale this Friday (7.30), the Workington Comets, are riding on the crest of an early season wave.

In fact it could so nearly have been six out of six because they only went down by 46-44 at Newcastle when they lost 5-1's in both Heats 13 and 15 after holding an 8-point lead. So Monarchs beware!

Andrew Tully will be moving heaven and earth to regain his Scottish Open dominance against his opposing No.1, Rene Bach who had a night to forget on that occasion. The young Danish rider has had a patchy start to 2012 but is capable of winning any given heat.

Derek Sneddon too has still to show the Monarchs fans his best form since his much anticipated return to the side. His scheduled opposite number at No.2, American Kenny Ingalls has failed to recover from a shoulder injury in time for this weekend and his absence will be covered by rider replacement.

Theo Pijper has been quite sensational on his return to the blue and gold but the same can be said for Workington's No.3, Richard Lawson who has rarely scored less than double point scores in any match so far. This could be one of the key match-ups, with home advantage perhaps just favouring the flying Dutchman.

Monarchs troubled skipper Matthew Wethers gets no respite this week as he faces Adam Roynon who has been steadily accumulating important points at No.4 in every match. Adam has faced many serious setbacks in his 10 years in speedway but he is as hungry to succeed as ever.

The clash of former teammates Craig Cook and Rusty Harrison at No.5 is a real cracker of a match-up as Craig hopes to become Monarchs No.1 in his fifth speedway season, a year earlier than Rusty did as a Monarch in 2006. But look out for the Australian who scored paid 13 at Glasgow last Sunday.

Micky Dyer has had to contend with some pretty good reserves of late after making a good start to his first UK season so it will be really interesting to see how he shapes up against Comets No.6, Gary Irving who is ultra keen to hold down a permanent place in his local team.

Former Comet Charles Wright has shown heaps of determination and promise at No.7 for Monarchs and he faces one of Edinburgh's reserves from last season, Kyle Howarth, who surprisingly chose a switch to Cumbria this year and has proved to be the key to Workington's success.

On paper at the start of the season, nobody would have predicted that the Comets would have been so dominant but that's often the way with speedway. The Comets seem to have struck just the right blend and have a number of riders who have upped their game. The opposite has been true of Monarchs who have under-performed by quite a margin so far.

But it only takes one match to turn all that around. If Kyle Howarth is allowed to rampage through the card as he has been doing elsewhere, it could be another difficult night for Monarchs. But if he can be contained and all the home riders show their best form, they could stop Comets in their tracks.

Likely line-ups:

SCOTWASTE MONARCHS: Andrew Tully, Derek Sneddon, Theo Pijper, Matthew Wethers (capt.), Craig Cook, Micky Dyer, Charles Wright.

WORKINGTON COMETS: Rene Bach, Rider replacement for Kenny Ingalls, Richard Lawson (capt.), Adam Roynon, Rusty Harrison, Gary Irving, Kyle Howarth.