Edinburgh Monarchs v Rye House Rockets

REPORT Friday 11th September 2009, 10:00pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Scotwaste Monarchs could scarcely have anticipated taking a 36-point lead in the cup semi against a team with such a good Armadale record as Rye House.

After the late call-off by both German riders, and the afternoon booking as a guest of William Lawson, a lot depended on how William went ? and he came up trumps. This was the William of old, the rider who topped our averages with thrilling racing over the first half of 2008.

It was a team showing though against a Rockets team which enjoyed no luck, starting the match with 6 riders and being down to 4 after only six heats. Linus Sundstrom crashed in heat 5 after running into Andrew Silver, and one heat later Tommy Allen, who falls so often, hit the fence at the back and suffered a foot injury.

These incidents meant that Rockets could only field one rider in four separate heats, and the remaining reserve Andrew Silver had to take seven rides. At least he managed one of his team?s mere two race wins.

The only consistently good Rye House man was Chris Neath, and even he was well beaten in heat 1 as the powerhouse Fisher/Lawson pair sped away ? with Fisher equalling Theo Pijper?s three year old track record. Bowen challenged Lawson early in the race before Neath came through for the point.

The home reserves added a 5-1 in heat 2 in spite of the close attention of Andrew Silver, and we took another 5-1 in the third race with danger man Joe Haines off the pace.

Michal Rajkowski led heat 4 but we had the first crash of the night as Silver locked up and Sundstrom ran into him. There was a fair delay as the Swede was attended to, before Silver became the first Rocket to take a point off a Monarch by heading Byron Bekker.

Heat 5 saw the Tommy Allen crash which left Rye House decimated. Neath did manage to nip past Matthew Wethers to take second in heat 6 though.

Rye fielded one rider only (Silver) in heat 6 and he was well beaten by Fisher and Lawson, and when Summers and Rajkowski took another maximum in heat 7 it was becoming embarrassingly one sided.

Haines had a better ride in heat 8, chasing Lawson home, and Bekker diving through on the last bend for the point. Silver fell and Byron got the benefit of the doubt, not for the first time.

With Silver again out on his own in heat 9 it was back to the home 5-1s.

Luke Bowen showed his capabilities in heat 10 to head home Lawson, behind the flying Fisher.

Rockets used their first tactical gate switch in heat 11. They chose gates 1 and 2 with Neath on gate 1, but it didn?t seem to work as Rajkowski and Summers went ahead. However Neath swept past both for an excellent win.

Buoyed by this success, things got even better for Rockets in heat 12. The first attempt was stopped for a Bekker flier, but the ref then allowed Andrew Silver to get away with almost as blatant a one in the rerun. Matthew Wethers chased but got into difficulties late in the heat allowed Haines through for a visiting 5-1.

Neath took a second in heat 13 but could not catch Fisher, and Monarchs took 5 in heat 14 before finishing off with a 4-2, Fisher winning again from Neath. The American finished on a 6-ride paid maximum, an excellent performance.

HERMISTON MONARCH OF THE MATCH: Ryan Fisher.

Full Result Details