Heavy Defeat At Lakeside

The Staggs Bar Monarchs suffered their heaviest defeat of the season going down 54-36 at Lakeside on Saturday night.

The Monarchs were outclassed throughout providing only 5 race wins as the home team’s top 5 ran riot recording 44 points between them. They were ably backed up by the very impressive Zach Wajtknecht at reserve who romped to a paid 12 score also.

Team manager John Campbell said “I’m not surprised by the result but it’s disappointing to get a hammering. Only Edward Kennett and Matt Williamson had ridden the track before, and it’s obviously the most difficult track in the league to ride. Lakeside are a very well built home team and it will take a very good team to do well here. Adam Ellis was particularly brilliant.

“Max was very good in winning heat 7 but after he went from first to last in his next race, he admitted himself that he tried something and got it wrong. That was lack of experience round this place, and lack of experience overall.

“He was competitive at Peterborough and he was also competitive here. Edward Kennett got into it at the end, Erik and Max were OK but did lose one or two positions.”

For the Monarchs there was very little to cheer about heat 2 and 15 maximums and a heat 7 4-2 being the only heat advantages of the night and only Erik Riss, Max Ruml and Josh Pickering can take any solace from their nights work really.

Edward Kennett standing in for Ricky Wells started terribly although he did come to the party as the match progressed being unbeaten in heats 13 and 15 but by this point it was too late. Mark Riss had his worst match of the season recording only 1 point and Joel Andersson could not come to grips with the Arena Essex raceway circuit failing to trouble the scorers.

Josh Pickering battled manfully for his 6 point return but was often left to try and battle from the back due to some poor gating and with the home men fully dialled in this was always going to be a tough task.

There was at least a brighter outcome for fellow newcomer Max Ruml who had an impressive heat win over home heat leader Richard Lawson among his 5 points.

For the majority of the match though the main resistance would come from Monarchs captain Erik Riss as he recorded a brace of heat wins in his 12 point return.

It would have to be said this was perhaps not a match the Monarchs would have been targeting for a win given the strength and performances of the home team so far this season but the manner of defeat will still rankle and a few in the Blue and Gold camp may need to take stock of their performances with a big KO Cup weekend against Glasgow ahead.

Scorers:

Lakeside 54: Nick Morris 9, Ben Morley 7+1, Adam Ellis 12+1, Kyle Newman 8+2, Richard Lawson 8+1, Zach Wajtknecht 10+2, Alfie Bowtell 0

Edinburgh 36: Edward Kennett 9+2, Joel Andersson 0, Mark Riss 1, Max Ruml 5, Erik Riss 12, Matt Williamson 3, Josh Pickering 6+1

Is The Only Way Essex?

The Staggs Bar Monarchs are on the road again this weekend making the long trip south to take on the Lakeside Hammers in SGB Championship action.

The Monarchs will be looking to build on a promising start to their league campaign with 4 points taken from our home and away clashes against Peterborough so far. This will be a different kettle of fish to coin a phrase though as the Hammers look like a powerhouse outfit with the capabilities of a top of the table finish in their sights.

Making the move to this level of British speedway for the first time since they were known as Arena Essex this will be a trip into the unknown for the majority of the Monarchs line-up. Only Matt Williamson having any recent knowledge of the circuit from our usual line-up, this coming last year when Matt visited with Buxton when our hosts were in the National League. Matt acquitted himself well with a 13 point score that night and hopefully another strong performance will be on the cards in this one.

For the rest of the Monarchs septet they may well have to look to our guest at number 1 for any tips and tricks on how best to get round the Arena Essex Raceway. That guest is former Hammers number one Eddie Kennett. Kennett is a known specialist around the Essex raceway and we will be looking for him to replicate the double figure scores that Ricky Wells has been putting in for us almost everywhere we have been while Ricky is away in Slovenia on GP qualifying duty and we wish Ricky all the best in that also.

For the rest of the Staggs Bar men it will be interesting to see how they take to the task, one thing that may work slightly in our favour is that the dimensions at Lakeside are not wholly dissimilar to that of Armadale so this may make the task a little easier.

What will not make the task any easier is the strength of the home men. The Lakeside promotional team having cannily built a team based on a powerhouse top of the line with Nick Morris and Richard Lawson a match for anyone anywhere then filling the lower reaches of the team with known Lakeside performers from the National League last year in Ben Morley and Alfie Bowtell.

The intrigue in the Lakeside outfit comes from the British core middle order of Kyle Newman, Adam Ellis and Zach Wajtknecht. Newman is of course a well known face in our division now having been around for a few years most notably with Plymouth. For Ellis and Wajtknecht it is a step back in the Championship after time spent exclusively in the Premiership and National League respectively and both have hit the ground running with Ellis currently averaging in excess of 8 and Zach not far off 5.5 in their meeting so far this season.

So a tough task lies ahead as we aim to be the first team to take anything from a visit to Essex this year. In fact only one team has stopped the home men from hitting the 50 point mark so far and that was Ipswich in the 2nd leg of their KO cup match which could have been argued was a dead rubber after the Hammers had won by 19 at Foxhall the night before.

That is not to say the Monarchs head south with nay less than a point as a target to being home…. Can we do it?