ANOTHER ASTONISHING VICTORY

NEWS Tuesday 11th August 2015, 10:30pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

It's hard to find superlatives to do justice to this wonderful Border Roofing Monarchs team who have now stunned everyone by coming away from the Sky TV match at Somerset with a 51-42 victory.

To say it was deserved would be an understatement with the Rebels getting a 6-point TR on their own track. And the match will very likely be remembered as the one in which we truly saw the potential of young Erik Riss.

You can't be at the match and watch Sky TV as well, or it would be hard, but apparently Kelvin thought he was involved in bring Erik over. In fact whilst no doubt he would have considered any UK club, it was Kevin Wolbert's suggestion and John Campbell's phone call which made him a Monarch.

He was breathtaking in this match, riding a fast wide line which he had only started doing at Peterborough! The rest of the team encouraged him to ride that way but he said "I've never ridden the dirt before, we don't have any in Germany!"

But he won that vital heat 14 on Sunday and he was even better tonight. He knows he still has plenty to learn but he is certainly learning!

Sam Masters, an inspirational presence as always, predicted beforehand that we were going to win. What ridiculous optimists these riders are.

However the signs were good right from the off when our incredible Cook/Sedgmen pairing got down to business right away and sped off for a 5-1. To beat the redoubtable Brady Kurtz quite easily was highly encouraging.

The reserves did their job by sharing heat two, with Rob Branford passing Ollie Greenwood. Garry May was shrewd enough to keep their weaker reserve away from our pair after that.

Then we saw Erik flying to his first win in heat 3, one of the best rides we have seen him have. Kevin was in second backing up but Charles Wright squeezed past him.

We followed our usual pattern by using Craig as r/r in heat 4 and he comfortably beat Grajczonek.

He was out again in the next race but thankfully this was a Sky break so there were no 2-minute concerns.

Again Craig won easily with Sedgy third, snapping at Wright's heels and well clear of Worrall.

We were now 19-11 up, and in danger of allowing Somerset a TR. Kevin rode a great race to take heat 6 with Kurtz and Lanham in the minor places.

Heat 7 was another Greenwood ride and the Germans shared it behind Grajczonek, then Sedgmen did a great job to take both heats 8 and 9, the latter as r/r. We seemed to be getting everything right.

We finally did go 10 up in heat 10 with another stunning ride from Erik, leading all the way from Kurtz who wasn't enjoying his usual successes.

Somerset didn't use their TR right away though they did in fact get the race winner, Grajczonek ahead of Sedgmen with Cook rather boxed in on the inside line.

Charles Wright took the TR in heat 12 and led all the way, with Kevin Wolbert ensuring that it wasn't a maximum advantage by keeping an eye on Starke in third.

That halved our advantage, 40-35 now, but what a heat 13 we then witnessed. In all honesty we have used Erik in this heat in order to maximise our points from the other three rides, but he was brilliant in this one, racing to the front yet again round the fence.

And Craig Cook could not have done a better job here, riding wide then cutting in from the fence to get inside Erik at the start of each corner. To do that with Kurtz and Grajczonek snapping at your heels was brilliant, and the 5-1 must be one of our most memorable heats ever.

We now only needed finishers to win, but Erik wasn't settling for that - even off gate one he headed straight for the dirt and rode another perfect wide four laps to take his tally to 14.

That meant we needed 2 from the final heat for the fourth point, and Cookie made sure in style. Erik was taken to the fence on lap one and sensibly didn't try anything daft thereafter.

How did the Sky commentary boys take it? Well if you watched Sky you will know, but it was better being there!

Full Result Details