ANOTHER ASTONISHING VICTORY

NEWS Sunday 20th April 2014, 7:06pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Scotwaste Monarchs once again travelled to Glasgow and did a demolition job on the Tigers, winning 58-35 in what was victory number 8 out of 8 at the start of the season.

They murdered the Tigers at the gate and allowed them very few chances to recover. After the home match on Friday night, predictions had been for a close match but it wasn’t long before we realised that wasn’t going to be the case.

Every member of the team did well, and every one of them had at least one paid win. Eleven race winners, five 5-1s including three in a row from heat 4, it was frankly a massacre.

Aaron Fox deserves a special mention because he is the one to whom this is all new. He started by keeping Kevin Wolbert at the back in heat one (Kevin eventually finished pointless), then joined Craig for a 5-1 against Rusty Harrison on a tactical ride! He finished with paid 6 and can be very happy with his weekend.

Justin Sedgmen started with two paid wins, beating the lively Bergé in his second ride, while in Derek‘s case his best rides were towards the end of the match – paid 6 from his last two.

Max Fricke scored 8 and might have had even more if he had been slightly bolder off the second bend with two outside line openings, though he did well to stay on in heat 10 when Derek must have thought it was an opposition rider coming round him!

Steve Worrall again gated like the proverbial scalded cat and deserved his heat 15 ride. He will stay at reserve at least till the end of May (though Sedgmen and Fox will swap over on 1st May).

Sam Masters looked as dominant as he had at Workington, and again showed his willingness to team ride as he protected Steve in heat 4.He is going to be a joy to watch this season, and he only dropped a point to Theo Pijper in heat 13.

Theo also took a point off Craig Cook on an afternoon when passing wasn’t easy, though it has to be said that the track staff did a good job of keeping the dust down without over-wetting the surface.

Cook of course, was outstanding again and such a pleasure to watch.

Best race of the day was Rusty Harrison’s win from the back in heat 3, and Bergé also deserves a mention for his spectacular efforts.

So that’s it, a pretty flawless performance. It’s not up to us to speculate how poor Glasgow were (when we expected otherwise), all we know is that we were flying again and we now move on to our first Premier League match against Unpredictable Sheffield on Friday. On that evening we will be going for nine in a row.