Monarchs Defeated

An undermanned Staggs Bar Monarchs fought valiantly before running out of steam going down 55-35 at Ashfield on Sunday afternoon.

With Ricky Wells and Josh Pickering both missing through injury and 8 of the 11 Championship teams in action guests were hard to come by so the Monarchs entered the match with r/r in place of Wells and Nathan Greaves stepping in for Pickering this leading to many predicting a heavy defeat ahead.

As it was the Monarchs started brightly enough and the scores were still tied after 3 races. Ominously though the Monarchs had not provided a race winner in these 3 heats and this was to continue throughout the afternoon.

Alex Harkess said "In truth it wasn't as bad as what I expected. Everyone tried very hard and with a bit of luck we might have got 40.

"It was difficult conditions, dry, extremely slick and dusty so with so many rides our tyres were finishing up with no tread on them. There was the usual big hole going in to the third turn and we kept hitting that.

"There was more racing than the score might suggest. Cameron's score was perhaps disappointing but he gave it everything.

"Our Swedes as usual had some good rides and some really bad ones, you never know from one race to the other what to expect from them.

"Connor Coles too was a bit frustrating because he made some starts but could not hold on.

"Nathan Greaves, a lovely guy, he did just as well as any of our riders and gave it his all.

"There was one heat in which I thought we might get a 5-1 but the home rider on the inside got the biggest flier you will ever see. When I phoned through the trainee referee said "No he only went when I put the green light on."

"But in the circumstances, we didn't do too badly."

Only 2 heat wins could be mustered, one for Joel in heat 7 followed by Victor in heat 8 and that was as good as it got as the hosts got stronger as the afternoon progressed slowly.

Craig Cook was once again at his imperious best and was handily backed up by Paul Starke, Claus Vissing and Rasmus Jensen all of whom had at least 2 race wins for the Tigers. Starke in particular classily coming from the back more than once.

Andersson was top scorer for the Monarchs with 10 and despite solid efforts from Cameron, Victor and guest Greaves there was never any great feeling that the visitors would pull off a shock.