Edinburgh Monarchs v Newport Wasps

REPORT Friday 19th May 2006, 10:00pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Monarchs gained a 16-point lead after a hard-fought and eventful first leg of the Cup tie with Newport.

Monarchs performed pretty solidly but Newport stuck to their task, took two 6-point TRs and in spite of only scoring 4 in the Collins' r/r rides, they will not be too unhappy with a 40-point score.

We couldn't stop Andre Compton streaking off with heat 1, and Joel Parsons made the gate in heat 2. This time, though, with a great burst up the back straight, Derek got under him on the pits turn to take the win.

William came down on the second bend of heat 3 after Carl Wilkinson had moved out very wide, and referee Vardy ruled all 4 back. The young maestro made no mistake in the rerun, our second 4-2.

Rusty and Derek raced off in heat 4 but this time it was Parsons' turn to burst under Derek and move him wide. This allowed Compton through as well for a shared heat.

The next two heats were very encouraging for Monarchs though, big 5-1's over Wilkinson and Compton, with the former falling at the end of lap 3 in heat 5. The gap was now 12.

Newport were certainly not ready to throw in the towel though. Sean just failed to get up on Tony Atkin in a shared heat 7, then we had an eventful heat 8. This was one which looked promising for Monarchs, but it was the visitors who led early on. Theo worked his way through with two inside passes, but Derek never got back into contention and fell on the final bend.

It was TR time for Andre in heat 9, and they chose well. He hit the first corner ahead and although William gave chase, there was never much chance he would peg back the leader. So we were down to a 9-point gap.

Theo and Henrik, now looking good as a pair, raced away from Wilkinson for an important 5-1 to get us back on the rails. Rusty won heat 11 from the back against the tenacious Schramm, but again Sean couldn't score.

Then it was TR time again, Wilkinson, and Matthew's clutch almost dragged him into the tapes as Wilko dashed away. Again it was six points and we had been pulled back to 10.

We needed a strong finish and to some extent we got it. Henrik backed up Rusty to defeat Compton, then we had a fascinating heat 14.

Atkin and Parsons were in front but Derek was determined not to let them get away, using the outside to squeeze ahead but never getting clear. After a couple of laps William came from nowhere to go under everyone out of the fourth bend, and going into lap three with the Monarchs on a 5-1, Atkin and Parsons tangled with the latter falling.

The heat was stopped and awarded, putting us 18 ahead.

We lost two of these in the last heat as Andre won off gate 1 and Rusty fell on the fourth bend. Will that one come back to haunt us?

HALMOND ENGINEERING MONARCH OF THE MATCH: Rusty Harrison.

Full Result Details