Redcar Bears v Edinburgh Monarchs

REPORT Thursday 11th September 2008, 10:00pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Redcar have been going very well recently with all of their top five on song, so it was always going to be a tough match without Thomas Jonasson. We didn?t really rise to the occasion.

We did keep it quite close for much of the match, but we needed the big hitters winning heats. That wasn?t happening and it never felt like a match we were on the way to winning.

Rider replacement for Thomas contributed a horrible 2 points, and with 4 each coming from nos. 1 and 5, the heat leader berths just were not firing.

As ever, Derek Sneddon did everything to inspire the side, starting by leading Gary Havelock all the way. William Lawson in his first serious ride for over two months was at the rear, though not so far back to be a serious concern.

We hoped to dominate the reserve encounters, so a heat 2 4-2 was about the least we were looking for, Aaron winning but Bugeja holding on ahead of Matthew.

Derek took the first r/r ride but was tailed off in heat 3 as Andrew chased hard but without success on Grieves and Kerr. It was no surprise that this was a tough pair to beat, and not surprising either that Ty Proctor took an impressive win in heat 4. Ryan and Aaron shared it, a fair bit back.

William then came to life, outgating Grieves and Kerr and taking an impressive win. Derek fell at the back but cleared the track, and we hoped this was William back on song.

We then saw Fisher put in a storming ride chasing Havelock hard all the way, and a good tussle for third won by Wethers from Auty to ensure an entertaining shared heat 6. There hadn?t been much passing but this one was worth watching.

After his good ride in heat 5, William took the r/r in heat 7 but made a dire start off gate 1 as Proctor and Benji Compton team rode home ahead of the chasing Tully. A very disappointing heat result, but soon reversed by a good 5-1 from Sneddon and Summers.

Fisher had gone well in heat 6 but couldn't repeat that in heat 9 as he trailed in at the back. Wethers split Grieves and Kerr.

Havelock won heat 10 but Auty completed a disappointing night as he pulled out at the back. That was the interval and we were 32-28 down.

Heat 11, another win for Proctor from Sneddon with Lawson again failing to beat Benji Compton. William?s gating was seriously uncompetitive.

There was a 6-point gap now, maintained by Grieves as he just got the better of Wethers on the first lap of heat 12.

Heat 13 was pretty much the end as first Fisher fell, then Lawson put up little resistance to Havelock and Proctor who gave Redcar a 10-point lead.

Summers was give a heat 14 TR, probably on the strength of better gating, but it was Tully who came through for a fine win over Kerr. Summers seemed sure to pass Compton but never quite made it.

Finally we had the best heat of the night, though the inclusion of Sneddon and Tully as our nominated pair said a great deal about the heat leader performances.

Both in fact rode brilliantly, with Andrew taking Havelock from the back in style and the very speedy Sneddon also pressurising the home captain strongly.

After the match came the bad news about Thomas to complete a pretty awful evening.

Full Result Details