Massive lead for Monarchs

The Stellar Omada Monarchs wanted a big win tonight in their Cup tie first leg against Workington, firstly to hopefully ease their passage to the next round and also to build up their own confidence after a mixed start to the season.

They could scarcely have imagined how well they would do, finishing with a 65-24 victory, a 41-point lead to take to Cumbria tomorrow plus paid maximums for Kye Thomson and Jonatan Grahn which must have done wonders for their self-esteem. And that's on top of another whopping 20 points for Victor Palovaara to add to the monster scores he has been getting recently.

A fortnight ago Grahn was struggling and not showing the form he should be capable of, but tonight he said "It's been an amazing night I'm so happy for the performance from all the guys in the team and also myself. Before the season I had a target to score ten points in every meeting and for sure I did it tonight, all the guys in the team helped each other.

"A lot of speedway is in the head and tonight it came right for me. We want to win every meeting and score good points, so we are going to Workington tomorrow to win that meeting too."

The Swede did quite a bit of work from the back including a last bend outside overtake on Jacob Hook in heat 9 and an inside move on Troy Batchelor in the final race after the Aussie seemed to have made the gate.

Both Grahn and the fast gating Kye Thomson were sitting on maximums after 14 heats but Alex Harkess didn't let them rest on their laurels and sent them out for the final race against the top two Comets, but they made no mistake.

Palovaara's 20 points included some smart first bend work, nothing better than a cut back in heat 12 which carried him right up the inside of the straight past the visiting pair of Zischke and Hook as well as his own partner, clean as a whistle into the lead.

Justin Sedgmen and Paco Castagna were in danger of being overshadowed but did a solid job nevertheless, and debutant Mark Parker followed instructions to complete his races and took his first point when visiting reserve Foord came to grief.

Whilst everything went to plan for the in-form home men it has to be said that Workington were disappointing opposition. Batchelor won two heats, Hook was steady for 8 points but the highly-rated pair of Zischke and Vuolas fell below expectations and did not get to grips with the track on a consistent basis.

It could of course be different in Cumbria on a wide full-throttle track but it is hard not to see Monarchs as very strong favourites to go through. Comets will surely want to regain some lost pride.