Brough And Ready

PREVIEW Sunday 28th August 2016, 12:45pm

by Graham Muncie

  Edinburgh Monarchs

It’s a jaunt down the A1 for the Border Roofing Monarchs this afternoon as we head for Brough Park to take on the Newcastle Sapphire Engineering Diamonds in the Premier League.

Unfortunately it is a little bit of a make shift Monarchs line-up that head south with Erik Riss missing due to being part of Germany’s under 21 team taking part in the European Championships. Erik would much rather have been with the boys at Newcastle but the German federation threatened a ban if he did not line up for them and that was that. The only facility allowed is a National League guest and Ben Hopwood steps in to deputise.

It appears that rushing back on Friday has done Ryan no favours either as he was seen on crutches after the match and he will miss today’s meeting in a hope another week of rest will do the job. Rider Replacement is the only option with all bar Sam entitled to an extra ride.

Newcastle are one of the form teams in the league just now and destroyed Peterborough 54-38 away from home on Friday night. A powerhouse performance with all of the top 5 being paid for at least 8 points and Lewis Rose racking up paid 11 at reserve also. All of the attention so far has been on Somerset’s run of form and Glasgow’s powerful septet but with matches in hand on both Newcastle cannot be counted out of the reckoning for the major honours come seasons end.

Anything the Monarchs can take today would well be seen as a bonus as we travel perhaps more in hope than expectation but with Dan and Max showing good form and Sam and Kevin having a known liking for the Brough confines perhaps we will surprise. With the lack of home matches raced so far due to the weather the Monarchs could well do with some further away points to cement our playoff position.

Newcastle Sapphire Engineering Diamonds

1 Robert Lambert

2 Victor Palovaara

3 Matej Kus

4 Ludvig Lindgren

5 Stevie Worrall

6 Lewis Rose

7 Danny Phillips

Edinburgh Border Roofing Monarchs

1 Sam Masters

2 Ben Hopwood

3 Mark Riss

4 Ryan Fisher R/R

5 Kevin Wolbert

6 Max Clegg

7 Dan Bewley

Full Result Details