Bandit Hunting

PREVIEW Saturday 11th June 2016, 2:59pm

by Graham Muncie

  Edinburgh Monarchs

It’s a short trip down the A1 this evening as the Border Roofing Monarchs look to kick start the defence of the our Premier League title against the Berwick Olympus Marquees Bandits at Shielfield Park.

The Bandits have been on a strong run of form recently having taken 6 points from two away matches at Scunthorpe and Rye House last weekend these results having catapulted the Bandits into the playoff places at the towards the top end of the table.

It is a different looking Berwick line-up that we will face tonight thought with both a guest and rider replacement facility in place for the home men.

The Rider Replacement facility will operate at number 1 where with Seb Alden currently sidelined with a broken neck the Bandits had booked exciting young Dane Nikolaj Busk Jakobsen to be his replacement but Jakobsen has pulled out of the meeting citing that a couple of recent engine blow ups has left him without suitable equipment to complete the booking. As this is the top place in the Bandits line-up all other members of the now sextet are available to take a ride.

The other change in the Bandits line-up comes at reserve where another Peterborough star is due to guest in place of homesick Romano Hummel. In this instance it is the inform Simon Lambert who takes the place of the young Dutchman who at 17 years old has decided to he is not ready to facing the rigours of a full Premier League season away from his family. So if anyone is keeping count that’s Simon Lambert who is guesting for Romano Humell who was a replacement for Henning Bager who replaced Anders Melgren. This is a change that has the potential to strengthen the Bandits with Lambert’s recent form and our reserves will need to up their game from our last visit to Shielfield should they want to compete.

The rest of the Bandit’s line-up is as programmed with a ton of experience on the Bandits middle ranks being made up as it is of Theo Pijper, Kevin Doolan and Matthew Wethers being joined by the younger members of the team in Danish flyer Thomas Jorgensen and Liam Carr.

Of course the Border Roofing Monarchs have already come away from the Borders with a victory this season having prevailed 48-42 in the League Cup encounter back in April. This victory was built on the excellence of our top men with Ryan Fisher racing to an imperious maximum, Ryan being more than ably backed by Sam and Kevin who were both only defeated once by an opponent. We would have to imagine that if we get this kind of return from our top men again then we are in with more than a shout of repeating that result as our lower order looks to be in better form than they were at this time.

Of course all eyes will be on our new recruit Mark Riss, the elder Riss brother having shown up well on his debut at Armadale last night. Riss was definitely on the pace and but for some poor starting he would have certainly scored more than the 1 point he came away with. We all know though how important gating is at Shielfield and if he can improve on this from last night he should be in the mix and it will be in this lower order area of Mark, Max and Dan that we will look for the backup to the top 4 that we will look to propel us to victory as we look to make grounds on the teams above us in the league using the matches in hand we currently hold.

Berwick Olympus Marquees Bandits

1- Seb Alden R/R

2- Theo Pijper

3- Kevin Doolan (Capt)

4- Matthew Wethers

5- Thomas Jorgensen

6- Simon Lambert (Guest)

7- Liam Carr

Edinburgh Border Roofing Monarchs

1- Sam Masters (Capt)

2- Erik Riss

3- Kevin Wolbert

4- Mark Riss

5- Ryan Fisher

6- Max Clegg

7- Dan Bewley

Full Result Details