Outstanding Point, and It Could Have Been More

REPORT Thursday 19th May 2016, 10:11pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Border Roofing Monarchs took a Premier League point at Ipswich tonight, a great effort without Erik Riss, but it could easily have been an even better result.

John Campbell expressed great disappointment with the refereeing of Dave Robinson during the vital last heat when a 5-1 would have brought Monarchs victory. We had just that at the first turn but home no. 1 Danny King came off on his own and made a flying start in the rerun.

John said “We were robbed by the referee. In the first staging King missed the start, and there’s no doubt that he just flopped off hoping that he’d get a rerun – and it worked for him. And then in the rerun, a completely rolling start from the outside. Ryan said to me ‘I didn’t even race to the corner because I thought he had touched the tapes’. It had to be stopped because it was so blatant but the referee of course tried to justify it. Dreadful refereeing.

“Obviously we would have won fairly easily with Erik fit. We only got one and a bonus from rider replacement, most teams will win here I think. Danny King is not the rider he used to be at the moment.

“It was still a good performance, Sam and Ryan excellent, Kevin steady and won the TR race when it mattered. Max Clegg, did well when he made the start and blasted round the outside to win heat 14, which was critical.”

Our weakened lineup had gradually lost ground in the early part of the match in spite of the usual excellence of captain Sam Masters. We were ten behind with four races left, but put in a grandstand finish, first with a 6-point TR win for Wolbert in heat 12. Then Masters and Fisher shocked King and Covatti with a 5-1 in heat 13, and Max Clegg kept us in the hunt with a win in the penultimate race.

It wasn’t a fair finish but we just have to get on with it, congratulate our guys and move ahead.

Full Result Details