Scunthorpe Scorpions v Edinburgh Monarchs

We have a very good record at Scunthorpe, but were travelling with a weakened team. We needed everyone to be at their best.

It was not great news to hear that Scorpions had drafted in Richie Worrall to replace Tero Aarnio, injured at Newcastle the day before, because Richie is the best 4.31 average rider in the history of the Premier League!

In the end it didn’t matter all that much because we were not at our best anyway. We were caught out by a very poor gate 3 at the start, heavily soaked, which saw Craig, Andrew and Matthew stranded from the start in their opening rides.

When we reached heat 6 with a 25-11 deficit, Andrew Tully having lost a 5-1 while taking our first TR, we knew it wasn’t our day.

The only favourable sign in the early stages was that Micky Dyer found his feet right away with a second place in heat 1, beating Thomas Jorgensen who is no slouch.

Micky was called on again in unfortunate circumstances in heat 7. Matthew had made a decent start from gate 4 but was hit from behind by Jerran Hart, and stayed down for a lengthy period of treatment. Micky replaced him and actually led Auty for quite a bit in the rerun before the aggressive home man forced past.

Micky also took the rider replacement in heat 8 and got another second there.

We were 20 behind when we used our second TR with Theo in heat 10, which also featured the welcome re-appearance of Matthew. Theo managed 4 points but Matthew looked uncomfortable.

Micky had a 2-minute exclusion in heat 11, and we put him off 15 metres rather than use Steve Worrall, who hadn’t done too badly. We lost one or two wins during the day due to ignoring the outside line, and Craig was guilty of that in this race, being passed by Auty.

We were now trailing 45-23 and looked set for a very big defeat indeed, but with the outside line fading a bit our more conservative tactics started to come into their own.

Micky took a memorable win in heat 12 backed to a 5-1 by Theo, heading the previously unbeaten Richie Worrall.

Craig took an excellent win in heat 13, beating Auty who must be about the hardest charging opponent in the league. Matthew then took his final ride and worked hard to pass Hart, before Craig repeated his heat 13 success over Auty in the final race.

Well done to Craig for these wins, Theo for steadiness and Micky for his highly promising display, but obviously we need more from other quarters.