Glasgow Tigers v Edinburgh Monarchs

The Border Roofing Monarchs went down 48-41 in the first leg of the Premier Playoff Final at Ashfield tonight after a long, long night with too many unfortunate incidents affecting the meeting.

We lost Rob Branford in heat two after he had made the start, but lost it on the second bend, colliding with Max Clegg.

Even more significantly, Glasgow lost Aaron Summers after a nasty crash in heat 7. He was going off 15 metres as the latest of Tigers' tape offenders, when Hynek Stichauer came off in front of him and Aaron could not miss the fallen machine.

Branford has wrist and hip injuries and Summers a more serious wrist injury which required a hospital visit.

In all honesty Glasgow did very well to win the match after Summers' withdrawal, and in the end we were hanging on. Wins by Erik Riss and Craig Cook in the last two races were most welcome.

It was an enormous crowd which had assembled for the start, though right away it was apparent that the lighting was pretty patchy and extremely gloomy in parts.

The track was very damp with a strong dirt line on the outside. At times we struggled to cope with this, though Lawson, Morris and Sarjeant all used it very well.

With a pretty strict referee (Chris Gay) in the box, we saw Sarjeant hit the tapes in heat 1, Morris in heat 3, Morris for two jumped starts in heat 5 and then Summers in heat 7, which led to his injury. There were other stoppages and the only other one we'd probably take issue with was Sarjeant's too-fast start in heat 11, which he got away with. In that heat Cook came down trying to catch him.

Craig was nevertheless pretty good, dropping one other point to Lawson. Kevin Wolbert scored ten from 4 though he found conditions difficult, and likewise Sedgmen for his 7 which did include an excellent heat 8 win from Sarjeant and Morris.

Sam Masters had a terrible night after starting with a two-minute exclusion due to carburettor problem, but he is confident of making up for it tomorrow.

Erik Riss also found the track difficult but showed his great determination to finish with that vital win.

Max Clegg rode well in the heat two rerun to pass Stichauer on the outside, but thereafter made heavy weather of things.

So tomorrow is another day and the outcome is still in the balance. We will have to see what the two teams are, to start with.

We are aware of the notice being handed out at the end of the meeting but have no comment to make on it at this stage.