Strong Monarchs start but Pirates progress

REPORT Friday 3rd May 2024, 11:27pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Stellar Monarchs ripped into this Knockout Cup second leg with such gusto that for a time, an aggregate victory looked a possibility. But Poole are made of strong stuff with some top-line performers, and they re-asserted themselves and had qualification sealed by heat 13. Monarchs took the victory on the night which will be some consolation as they look forward to BSN Series and Championship commitments in the next few weeks.

No. 1 Josh Pickering gave his usual highly committed performance and was not downhearted at the end. "We've got to take the positives from that," he said, "we've beaten a good team Poole at home and that's something we certainly didn't do last year. They are a great side, it would have been nice to win on aggregate but couldn't manage that. We certainly want to win all our home matches this year. I'm happy that the boys are putting the work in and they will continue to get better."

These first four heats really lifted the hopes of the home support. Josh Pickering and Lasse Fredriksen opened with a 5-1 over Pirates' star Richard Lawson, with Thomsen falling at the back.

Max James continued his excellent start to the season with his first home race win in heat 2, and then Paco and Kye hit the front from the tapes in heat 3! Tom Brennan rode a great race to peg back Kye but we still took an advantage, and we repeated that in heat 4 won after a great start by Justin Sedgmen with Connor Coles taking an important point.

So it was 16-8 and we were only one behind on aggregate! That however proved to be the high water mark for the Monarchs as Poole came back strongly over the next few heats.

It was not unexpected that Brennan, Lawson and the Cooks would be formidable opponents, but heat 5 was won by Tobias Thomsen with backing from Lawson for a 5-1. The Dane certainly proved to be one of the key men in the meeting.

Two heats later another fine ride by Brennan to pass race leader Sedgmen chipped two more points off our lead, and the aggregate was not looking so hopeful – 7 behind in the tie.

Thomsen took another race win in heat 8, and both Ben Cook and Brennan followed up with further wins to prevent us from making progress. The heats were starting to run out.

Justin Sedgmen in heat 11 was our first race winner since heat 4, but we were lacking race advantages. When Brennan won heat 12, it was almost all over.

There were several good races but heat 13 was surely the pick of them. Richard Lawson gated with Josh and Sedgy chasing, and round the third/fourth bend of lap one while Josh moved Richard out, Ben Cook came storming up the inside and forced Sedgy to the back. Josh kept up the chase and eventually with a cutback followed by a dive bomb to the next bend he squeezed alongside and eventually past Lawson.

The scores were still level and Poole were through at that point. Zach Cook prevented Paco getting his usual heat 14 win so it was 42-42 going in to the last race.

This time Sedgy got to the front, and Josh just squeezed up his inside where there was not much room, so when Tom Brennan slightly lost control the home pair were able to establish a winning lead to secure the home win.

Full Result Details