Tough night in Sussex

The Staggs Bar Monarchs went down 54-36 tonight at Eastbourne, one of the toughest places in the UK to score well at.

Monarchs' team manager John Campbell said "It was dry and very, very dusty in front of a big crowd. Their reserves passed ours in heat 2 but apart from that, there wasn't a lot of overtaking.

"The scoreline was not unexpected. Ricky was our most competitive rider, though he was still sore from his crash at Armadale last week. He didn't feel able to take a tac sub ride in heat 6 but he did manage to take one in heat 9.

"Connor Coles was fine, William Lawson made a start in heat 12 and led that race for a time, which shows what he is capable of if he could ever make a start. But he rarely does."

We were 8 points down at heat 8, and a couple of 1-5 reverses in the second half of the match helped widen the gap to 18 by the end of the night.

Ricky Wells and Joel Andersson were our race winners, Joel's coming in heat 14 after a stramash with Alfie Bowtell who had brought him off in the first running of the heat. Ricky won heat 5 and heat 15 to make him comfortably our top scorer. Our race advantages were heats 5 and 14 but too many went the other way.

Long Trip Into The Unknown

The Staggs Bar Monarchs face a long trek south this weekend as we head for Arlington to take on the Eastbourne Eagles in Championship action.

This will be a bit of a trip into the unknown for the Monarchs with this being the first time the 2 sides have been in the same division in many a year.

That is not to say there is not some Arlington experience in the Monarchs ranks though with Connor Coles a former Eagle and Ricky Wells, William Lawson and Cameron Heeps all having previous visits also.

Unfortunately the meeting comes a little to quickly for Josh Pickering who is hoping to make his return next weekend against Newcastle, Glasgow's Paul Starke steps in. Starke has been in top form of late and recorded a paid 10 point score on the Tigers visit earlier in the season. It could also be argued that the Monarchs are due Starke a booking after he we due to ride for us in the abandoned matches at Berwick and Leicester.

It has been an up and down season so far for the home men, with the team put together with top end strength and experience this being backed up by younger riders that stepped up from the National League when the switch was made. The expected outcome of this was that Arlington would be a fortress, while in the past few weeks this has been the case with the margin of victory in the last 4 home matches being 22 points or higher each team, there was a couple of shock home defeats earlier in the season to Leicester and Glasgow that mean in the league at least the Eagles can afford no more slip ups.

The home men are led by one of the most powerful heat leader trios in the division in Edward Kennett, Richard Lawson and Lewis Kerr. With the exciting prospect of Tom Brennan sadly sidelined by the horrific injuries suffered earlier in the season further experience comes from Kyle Newman.

This quartet is then backed up by the younger members of the team with Ben Morley, Georgie Wood and Alfie Bowtell all well dialed in at home.

Their was a further boost for the Eagles going into the fixture as they survived a scare to overcome Leicester in the KO cup quarter final on Friday night setting up a semi final battle with Redcar who knocked out Glasgow on the same evening.

So a confident home team high on form at a track the Monarchs have little to no experience in. Sounds like a tough task for the Staggs Bar men however the old saying is when the going gets tough the tough get going and it is time for the Monarchs to start picking up away points for any chance of playoff qualification to be possible.

Keep an eye on the Monarchs official website for updates throughout.