It's Now Or Never

PREVIEW Friday 22nd September 2017, 2:28pm

by Graham Muncie

  Edinburgh Monarchs

It all comes down to this! It’s the second leg of the SGB Championship playoff semi final against the Ipswich Witches at Armadale as we look to overturn a 10 point deficit from the first leg on Thursday night and clinch a final berth.

A tough task lies ahead as the Witches have been competitive visitors to Armadale this year going down by 8 and 4 points in their two league visits, of course if either of these results are repeated tonight then it will be season over for the Monarchs and it will be the Witches marching on.

The Monarchs battled hard last night but we did not have the heat winning back up to captain Sam Masters who was back to his best with a 14 point haul. This will need to be reversed this Friday with the Monarchs needing to fire all cylinders from all parts of the team if we are to progress.

We will be boosted by the return of Mark Riss from injury. Mark was a huge miss at Ipswich last night as his rider replacement rides netted only 2 points and we will be looking for him to be back to form tonight.

Elsewhere Sam will continue at number 3 with Ricky at 1 with the new averages in place. Josh rides at 2 with Mark slotting back into the number 4 slot and with no tactical rides available tonight there is no need to worry about potentially nullifying one of these also.

For the Witches they line-up exactly the same as the 1st leg with rider replacement operating for Cameron Heeps allowing everyone bar Danny King an extra ride and Mason Campton who did such a good job guesting for the Suffolk men at Foxhall retaining his place in place of injured Justin Sedgmen.

The rest of the Witches are as planned with Danny King and Rory Schlein leading the way and Kyle Newman providing backup. Add to this one of the most impressive reserve pairings in the league in Nathan Greaves and Connor Mountain and it is easy to see why Chris Louis’s men had such a good season and finished second in the standings.

So the night of the season is here, a tense and exciting affair lies ahead under the lights at Armadale. Can the Monarchs progress? One thing is for sure our Blue and Gold heroes will need every bit of support we can give them and a loud support will surely gee the boys on to perform. I for one can’t wait and as always See You There!

Full Result Details