THE CUP IS OURS AGAIN

NEWS Sunday 7th October 2007, 8:08pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Scotwaste Monarchs completed the job they went to Glasgow to do, and retained the Scottish Cup by a resounding 97-88 on aggregate.

This was in spite of a generous, and some might say over-generous, agreement by Edinburgh to allow Glasgow to use Gary Havelock in place of Craig Watson who had apparently aggravated a previous shoulder injury in Tigers' match against Redcar.

Certainly Watson had struggled on the over-watered track in the Redcar match, surprisingly won by the Bears in spite of fielding an understrength side.

Robert Ksiezak also missed the second match, Tigers using rider replacement. His form had been poor in any case but he picked up an injury during the Young Shield match.

So Tigers seemed substantially stronger lining up against Monarchs than they had been against Bears.

Nevertheless the Monarchs' men tore into the match, and actually held a 2-point lead after 7 races, with Stancl, Laukkanen, Wethers and Giffard all winning early heats.

We fell away somewhat, but never looked like conceding the overall advantage. A good second place for Matthew Wethers in heat 13 virtually clinched the cup, leaving Derek Sneddon to make absolutely sure with a 4-point TR in heat 14.

The Monarchs were preseneted with the Scottish Cup... eventually.. after some presentations and interviews featuring the home riders.