Edinburgh Monarchs v Newcastle Diamonds

We started our home programme in the Premier Trophy last year against Newcastle and here we are again doing the same this year. This year's Newcastle side looks to be much stronger than last year's but so far they haven't exactly set the heather alight beating Workington at Brough Park by only one point, thanks to a Tactical Ride which yielded an extra three points.

Away from home they followed an unlucky one point defeat on a rain-soaked track at Stoke with an absolute thrashing at Sheffield where their much vaunted heat leader trio of George Stancl, Josef Franc and James Grieves failed to provide a single race winner. It took a shared last heat for the Diamonds to hit the 30 point mark, a feat which had looked unlikely at one point.

It's fair to say, however, that they are highly unlikely to go through Friday night's match without a race winner because all three of their heat leaders have enjoyed excellent matches in the past at Armadale. In fact it's unlikely that we will have to face a stronger Armadale specialist heat leader trio all season.

It is so important to prevent any of them dominating this match and to be well prepared for the big Diamonds finish in heats 13-15 where Stancl. Franc and Grieves are likely to have five rides between them. They seem particularly well set up to make good use of the TR rule if needed.

Further down the line Newcastle don't look anything like as strong. Christian Henry has had some good moments this season but may find points much harder to come by at one of his former tracks. Manuel Hauzinger should not pose a major threat and at reserve Jaimie Robertson and Adam McKinna will find it difficult to outscore their Edinburgh counterparts particularly with Derek Sneddon in such sparkling form.

What Monarchs will be looking for is Henrik Moller getting dialled-in to the track (apologies to Sam Ermolenko!) and for William Lawson to solve his mechanical problems. Sean Stoddart will score points when he stops giving the opposition yards of a start at the starting gate and Matthew Wethers needs to dominate the Newcastle bottom four. Theo Pijper and Rusty Harrison will have their work cut out in taming the Newcastle big guns but are well capable of doing just that.

All in all not an easy match to start with but victory on Friday night will kick start our campaign and set us up for the return leg on Sunday. A win by more than 6 points should be the minimum target for the team. Here's hoping they arrive back from Sheffield unscathed both physically and mechanically.