Rye House Rockets v Edinburgh Monarchs

It's a while since we won at Rye House, and in current circumstances the most realistic hope was a decent display. That's what we got.

Right from heat 1 we were quite pleasantly surprised, sharing a heat against a strong home pair. Kennett won but we kept Boxall at the rear.

Derek came from gate 4 to win heat 2, then we had a first bend crash in heat 3 with Tommy Allen disappearing under the fence.

An exclusion for Allen seemed a formality but instead we had unsatisfactory start, all four back. Matthew rode a fine race in the rerun to pass Allen for a win, but Henrik was a disappointing fourth.

Neath won a shared heat 4, and Theo rode a good first lap on the outside line in heat 5 to pass Ross Brady and grab second.

Our first heat advantage came in heat 8. Henrik was in as r/r and romped off with the heat, while Derek beat their new signing Adam Roynon. So at this stage we trailed 23-25.

It is from this point on that our performances require improvement. Over the next three heats we dropped to a 10-point deficit, and that's where the face-saving TR comes in.

Heat 12 is generally a weak heat and a good target, and so it proved as Matthew and Derek led the way from Ross Brady. The 8-1 seemed a certainty, until Matthew fell - maybe the low sun, maybe the track watering, but he dropped it for whatever reason and the chance was gone.

The rerun was a 4-2 against. Heat 13 was a good one for William who pulled off an exciting outside run on the first corner to go ahead. Kennett showed his high quality by chasing and passing on the outside, but William still managed to beat Neath.

Henrik took a second on his TR ride in heat 14 before we finished with a maximum loss.

In a way it is a sign of low expectations to view this as a good performance, and to say that we deserved more (ie had we got that 8-1).

But at the moment that is our lot. It was sunny, and we didn't lose by as much as we feared we might.