Glasgow Tigers v Edinburgh Monarchs

REPORT Sunday 3rd October 2010, 10:00pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

So much has gone right for us this season, it comes as quite a shock when things go wrong. But this was our second successive bad away match, and we have lost Andrew Tully for the season.

To some extent the injury was down to conditions but of course we do have to ride in bad conditions from time to time. If only the grading which followed Andrew?s crash had been done earlier.

There was trouble for Monarchs right from the start. Ryan Fisher fell on the first corner of heat 1, Tully?s crash came in heat 4 and Fisher fell again in heat 5 by which time Monarchs trailed 19-11, with Tigers? guest reserve Jade Mudgway one of the unbeaten home riders.

Tully was of course out of heat 6 but at least William Lawson managed to get ahead of Branney for a second place.

We used Ryan Fisher as rider replacement in heat 7, though we didn?t use the TR and just as well ? Ryan had a bike problem, and Kalle fell off! Ryan limped home for a third and we were shell-shocked at 28-14 down!

The TR was kept back for Matthew in heat 8, which looked a very likely win ? until his bike stalled at the tapes. He was immediately deemed guilty of exceeding 2 minutes and went off 15 metres.

The Tigers led the way with William Lawson trailing, but Matthew did come through to catch Mudgway, which in the circumstances was something of an achievement.

We had the reserves out in heat 9, another Tully heat, and managed to share it as Nick Morris fell.

The rider replacement was also affected by the Tully crash, and we had Ashley Morris take the ride in heat 10 in which Kalle managed to split the Tigers. We were now 16 down.

Ryan switched bikes for heat 11 and at last we saw him back in his normal form, winning easily from Shane Parker.

We used Kalle as rider replacement and the second TR in heat 12, again a race which looked profitable. Prior to the heat Nick Morris had bike problems and in switching to a Grajczonek machine appeared to have well exceeded the two minute allowance. Somehow this wasn?t applied and with kale completely fluffing the gate, he trailed home behind the home pair. Another disaster, now we are 18 behind.

Fisher excelled again in heat 13, easily beating Parker and McGowan, then Kalle finally got a decent start to win heat 14. In this William Lawson had his best ride of the day to hold third, with Tigers? effective guest Mudgway crashing in his attempts to pass.

With another long delay in prospect the match was called off, leaving us with 16 points to pull back after an afternoon which was generally disastrous for us.

Full Result Details