It's Out of Our Hands

It's a case of waiting and watching for the Staggs Bar Monarchs now after leaving Ashfield empty handed this evening going down 56-34.

In all honesty the Monarchs got what they deserved as they were regularly outgated and outfought by a determined Tigers team whose season was on the line.

There were bright spots for the Monarchs with some tenacious rides by Erik Riss, Josh Pickering and guest Broc Nicol but the backup was not there to mount a serious challenge. Pickering saying after the match ''You've got to get yourself up for a Scottish Derby and tonight it wasn't to be and they did to us what we did to them the other week. It's one of they days where you need all 7 riders firing and that wasn't the case. It's one of them things where it just seems all 7 of them were up for it and we weren't''

The match got off to the worst possible start with Craig Cook and James Sarjeant racing from the tapes for a heat maximum, further advantages were to come for the home men in heats 3,6 and 8. Many on the terracing wondering why a tactical ride was not used in the latter, this of course being due to the rulebook that does not allow them.

That tactical did come in heat 9 but despite appearing to make the drop Ricky Wells was demoted to the back and the feeling was the match was gone.

The Monarchs did have the odd moment and it has to be said there were some excellent heats. None more so than heat 12 where Pickering's never say die attitude was well rewarded as he rode an exceptional race to round both Tigers in one move.

The very next race serving up more entertainment although sadly from a Monarchs point of view it was the Tigers cheering as they clinched the match with a 4-2 Cook passing Wells and Harris passing Riss.

Richie Worrall had an Ashfield return to forget his woeful night being summed up with a tape touch in heat 14 to end the Monarchs slim hopes of stealing a consolation point.

So it is now out of the Monarchs hands with 3 away points for the Tigers over their final 2 away matches at Ipswich and Lakeside eliminating us from the playoffs.

Biggest Derby in Years Tonight

The Staggs Bar Monarchs head west tonight for a "must-win" derby match in the race for the 2018 Championship Play Offs.

Both Monarchs and Tigers are finely poised to take one of the Play Off places with the likelihood that the winner of the derby will the team to progress, making it one of the biggest derby matches since 2015.

Captain Erik Riss said ahead of the match "It's a big match for us, we want to secure a place in the Play Offs. We don't want to play around, we want to win tonight.

Back in the last match, the Glasgow team was a little different, they're a little stronger, but so are we."

The Monarchs are without Joel Andersson, with Sheffield rider Broc Nicol stepping in.

For those not heading through, check out our live updates from 7:30pm >a href="/live">here.