Edinburgh Monarchs v Somerset Rebels

REPORT Friday 10th August 2012, 10:00pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

On a rare sunny Armadale night Somerset looked on paper like a side who could give Edinburgh a tough match.

They didn’t ride badly but they ran into a home team on their best form of the season, everyone scoring at least 5.

Craig Cook repeated his performance of the night before with five race wins, and his only problem at the moment seems to be that some of his starts are so fast that the referee pulls them back as too good to be true!

Even Jason Doyle could do no more than keep Cook just about in sight. The Aussie was the best performer for the Rebels but took until heat 11 to win a heat. That was the second and final Rebels’ race winner, the other one having come in very dodgy fashion in heat 4.

Jesper B Monberg went right across the first turn in this race, running into the fence and falling, and causing Andrew Tully to virtually stop. By this time Tom Perry and Marcel Helfer had sped on down the back straight and surely the only explanation for this heat not being stopped might be that the referee was blinded by the sun.

This win for Perry encouraged the Rebels to use him for their second TR in heat 8, which brought about a very entertaining race as Alex Davies tried to slow up Derek Sneddon to help Perry through, only for Sneddon to force his way to the front on the final bend.

Edinburgh had some excellent performers. Matthew Wethers looked sharper than he has all season and only lost points due to a broken chain in heat 14. His partner Theo Pijper was equally effective until he stopped while leading heat 9, and suffered the same fate in the final race.

And perhaps most encouraging of all, Jozsef Tabaka came back from a clash with Kyle Newman in heat 2 which saw both men hit the fence hard, to score a highly impressive 9 in very smooth style.

Andrew Tully rode well enough also and Marcel Helfer gave his best home show yet. For the Rebels Sam Masters gave reasonable backing to Doyle but the experienced duo of Monberg and James Wright looked well below par.

Full Result Details