ANOTHER TOUGHIE

NEWS Thursday 13th June 2013, 10:39pm

by Toby Lerone

  Edinburgh Monarchs

After negotiating successfully the toughest of tough fixtures at Somerset on Tuesday and in doing so producing, probably, the best Sky TV match of the season, another of the toughest of the tough fixtures comes up again on Friday evening with the visit of the Newcastle Diamonds in the Knock Out Cup quarter final.

The Diamonds have been on an impressive run and have been led by star man Richie Worrall. He scored 13 points for the Diamonds in their home match on Sunday and on Wednesday night scored an eighteen point maximum in the Elite League for King's Lynn. He was at Poole on Thursday night guesting for Birmingham and didn't do quite as well scoring 4 and three bonus. He'll certainly be well travelled by the time he reaches Armadale on Friday.

Craig Cook decided to take a rest this week and declined guest bookings on Wednesday and Thursday to be fresh for Friday evening. Theo Pijper certainly was in need of a rest after Tuesday. As well as having a large lump of skin removed from his thigh in a high speed crash in the World Long Track Grand Prix on Saturday he also broke one rib and either broke, or even worse, dislocated a second rib. He was in some distress on Tuesday and asked to be left out of heat 15 if it was possible.

Jozsef Tabaka had a spectacular tumble in heat 15 and seemed to be quite wrongly excluded from the race after clearly being brought down by Josh Grajczonek and ended up with an injury to his hand. When asked about the hand Jozsef said, "It is no problem."

Max Fricke has accepted a booking to ride for Border Raiders in their match against Dudley on Saturday at Berwick. He was delighted to receive the call as he has not yet mastered the Shielfield track and sees it as valuable experience.

Advance ticket sales for Friday night's match at Armadale would suggest that we can expect a very big crowd but maybe that is what we should expect with the meeting of the best two teams in the league.

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