CAN WE MAKE UP 26 POINTS?

NEWS Wednesday 18th September 2013, 11:30pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

We've certainly made things tough for ourselves in Friday's KO Cup semi-final replay second leg by going down 58-32 at Somerset tonight.

The Rebels are bound to think it's all over but we will be seeking to replicate the Armadale form shown in the recent match against Ipswich.

We never really got started at the OTA and with the score at 18-6 after four heats we were swimming against the tide from an early stage.

Craig Cook was our first race winner in heat 5, but another two 1-5 losses in heats 8 and 9 widened the gap to 22 points.

Our young guest reserve James Sarjeant rode a great first lap in heat 9 to actually pass Nick Morris, but Claus Vissing thought it was the opposition coming round him and took his partner wide. "I could only see the front wheel so I thought it was Morris," he admitted.

There hadn't been much good racing to this point but things did improve in the latter stages. Tabaka pushed Doyle really hard in heat 10 after the Aussie seemed to get a flier from the start, and there was a great battle between Cook and Grajczonek in heat 11.

Heat 12 was even better as Fricke and Pijper made the gate and tried to team ride in front, only for Nick Morris to burst between them for a narrow win.

Craig Cook made no mistake in heat 13 winning by a long way, and Claus Vissing took a good third place ahead of Grajczonek.

Jozsef Tabaka got a reward for persistency in heat 14 when he passed Davies on the final lap after a race-long chase.

That earned Jozsef a heat 15 ride alongside Craig. However once again the Rebels were faster away. Cook was at the back, but rode superbly to pass first Morris then Doyle. However he chose to go wide on the final turn and this let Doyle back through for the the win.

It was another bad away match for captain Derek who has struggled on the bigger tracks since wrecking his bike on the last visit to Somerset. He has completely rebuilt it now but hasn't found the answer to his away form yet.

Somerset had scored 58 or better six times previously this season, so it shows you don't have to be too far off form to get a beating down there.

So it's the proverbial mountain to climb on Friday but we'll be trying our hardest.