SOLID START TO THE LEAGUE CUP

NEWS Friday 10th April 2015, 11:58pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Border Roofing Monarchs comfortably won their first home League Cup match 56-37 against Workington, though it was only over the last three heats that they stretched their advantage.

There were plenty of positives in the team performance, but the two happiest riders were probably our German stars. Kevin Wolbert looked near his best with 13 points, and even more encouraging was the performance of Erik Riss who won his final two races to finish on 7 points.

Everyone had faith in the youngster coming good eventually but it was a pleasant surprise to see the heat wins coming so quickly. He made the start in heat 9 with Wolbert shepherding him round, though there wasn’t much opposition after Kyle Howarth had dropped out of the race early. However he proved it was no fluke by romping away with the much harder heat 14 after a forceful first corner.

There were plenty of points elsewhere in the side. Sam Masters dropped his first Armadale points of the season, much to his annoyance, in a tremendous heat 11 battle with Ricky Wells in which the pair passed and repassed. However Sam still scored paid 14, riding in combination with Craig Cook in heat 13 and Kevin Wolbert in heat 15.

Craig Cook again struggled with his gating, though he also pulled off a great win from the back over Rene Bach in heat 10. Craig finished on 9+2 from 4 rides.

Justin Sedgmen was consistently good again in scoring 9, and the two reserves added 3 each.

The match was fairly tame over the early heats with Monarchs just 8 ahead after heat 8. Guest Palovaara won heat two for the second week running, Ricky Wells held off Wolbert in heat 5, and Kyle Howarth sprung a surprise by heading Cook and Sedgmen in heat 6, in which he pretty blatantly jumped the start but got away with it.

Our Germans took a 5-1 in heat 9, and then followed the three best races of the night – the Cook win over Bach, the Wells – Masters classic and then a fine win from the back in heat 12 for Wolbert. He was fortunate to get a rerun after badly missing the start (Branford slid under the fence on the third turn) but he rode superbly to pass Bach in the re-start.

Ricky Wells was the star for the Comets with some support from captain Bach and reserve Palovaara, but overall it wasn’t really much of an improvement on Workington’s disappointing Armadale performances last season.

Now we head to Berwick for what will be a tough match down there on Saturday night.

Full Result Details