BEATEN BY THE BETTER TEAM

NEWS Friday 12th June 2015, 11:52pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Border Roofing Monarchs lost at home tonight for the first time since July 2013, going down 42-48 to Glasgow, and there is no point complaining because Glasgow for sure deserved to win.

We were six down after two races, but fought back to lead 32-28 after ten heats. At that point we must have felt that we held the upper hand, but over the closing races Glasgow very much got the better of us with far superior gating.

Richard Lawson was the man who did most damage, having his best Armadale meeting ever, winning the last heat decider after he had joined James Sarjeant for a heat 14 5-1.

But Lawson was far from alone because Aaron Summers, guest Richie Worrall and reserves Victor Palovaara and James Sarjeant all played a big part.

Incredibly even though we won the toss, heat 1 resulted in a 1-5 for the third home meeting running. Glasgow had packed strength into that opening pair, and were rewarded when Worrall and Lawson sped home untroubled.

Erik Riss split the Tigers pair in heat 2, won by Palovaara, but we were 3-9 down, and we could only share heat 3 behind Summers who led home our top pair of Wolbert and Sedgmen.

Dimitri Berge was ineffective as Tigers’ no. 5 and Craig Cook had no difficulty winning heat 4, with Palovaara in second place.

We had seven successive race winners from heat 4, which helped us to that 32-28 advantage. Heat 8 was an excellent indication of how well Erik Riss was improving as he outgated Richard Lawson, and had to do it again after Rob Branford fell in third place on the second lap.

Heat 11 was lost 1-5 when Craig Cook couldn’t catch Lawson and Worrall, and even though Kevin Wolbert made the start in heat 12 he left too much of a hole for Aaron Summers up the inside off bend two. That heat saw us drop two points behind, before levelling in heat 13.

Heat 14 was stopped after Sarjeant jumped the start for the second time (but wasn’t warned as he had been in heat 9), but in the rerun the Tigers raced away as Sedgmen got a truly awful start.

That meant we needed a 5-1 for a draw, and off gates 1 and 3 this proved impossible. A determined ride by Craig Cook got him a second place and that was all we managed.

Amazingly, from heat 9 onwards, every heat was won by the rider on gate 4. Only in heat 10 when Sarjeant clearly got a flier and was passed late in the race by Sam Masters, was this a win from the back. This dominance of one gate is unusual for Armadale and not what we really want to see, though not an excuse for the result.

Tigers’ fans were overjoyed obviously, and we were left to count the cost of a below-par performance with no-one in the home camp entirely happy with their efforts. It would be nice to think we can gain revenge on Sunday but we would need a big improvement – especially in our gating.

Unlucky Rob Branford hurt his shoulder in his heat 8 tumble, has already pulled out of his Rye House Raiders’ match tomorrow and is doubtful for Sunday.

Full Result Details