DISMAL DISPLAY AT ASHFIELD

The Scotwaste Monarchs rode against a select Glasgow side fielding four guests at Ashfield today, but in any case gave one of their worst displays in a long time to lose 35-58 (87-99 on aggregate).

The Super Cup, surely unlikely to be staged again, was inserted in the fixture list for a specific reason, but this was not followed up. Perhaps this will be rectified later. All it did achieve was a better-than-average payday for both clubs over the weekend, and that isn't to be sneezed at.

However the Monarchs' fans could rightly have felt they were let down today when they heard the Glasgow lineup. It was a pick-who-you-like select with Lee Complin, Aaron Summers, Jade Mudgway at reserve and Robert Branford, all in for no discernable reason other than to ensure that Tigers won.

Ironically they would not have needed such an overblown lineup because Monarchs didn't perform at all. Ryan Fisher did as well as would be expected, attacking the track and riding wide. His only bad race was off the poor gate one in a strong heat 13, and it was a pleasure to see him in Monarchs' colours again.

The others seemed unwilling or unable to move wide, and paid the penalty. You still need to gate well there, and the passing lines are limited unless the opposition kindly ride tight lines.

Ryan won two races including a six-pointer, Andrew finally made a start to win heat 12, Matthew won heat 8 with two INSIDE passes, and that was it for race wins. The difficulty of passing was highlighted when Lee Dicken managed to hold both Grieves and Complin at the back for virtually all of heats 9 and 12 respectively.

We could complain slightly about heat 7, stopped when we were on a 7-2 with Kalle leading in order to warn Aaron Summers for rolling. Other than that the score was about what we deserved and the Tigers' fans were jumping for joy. They haven't seen many Scottish derbies like this through there.