Mountain To Climb

PREVIEW Thursday 29th September 2016, 10:54pm

by Graham Muncie

  Edinburgh Monarchs

A massive task lies ahead as the Monarchs go looking to pull back a 26 point deficit as we welcome the Ipswich Tru7.Com Witches to Armadale in the second leg of the playoff quarter finals this Friday.

It’s hard to tell if we were very bad or the Witches very good last Thursday but it would be remiss of me not to call it the later. The Witches have found form at the right time and are a team no one wants to face just now. In saying that we have a job to do and I’m sure there is no one in the Monarchs camp that has given up going into Friday night with a hat trick of titles still on the table.

There have been two main instigators to the change in fortune for the Witches, the introduction of Joe Jacobs and the resurgent form shown by Danny King. The Witches had a revolving door at reserve prior to the introduction of Jacobs and no one can help but have been impressed by the form shown by the young Ipswich born racer (note no jokes referencing crackers, I hope you all know I’m better than that) both at PL and EL level where he has been an impressive tail ender scorer for Belle Vue in their march to the Playoff final.

A lot was made of King’s early season struggles and I have mentioned previously that he thought this was down to the impending birth of his 2nd child. With bambino now in place and all in order Danny has went about having the season of his career and is undoubtedly the form rider in the Premier League just now.

There is a solid and balanced look to the rest of the Ipswich line-up with consistent contributions from Jumpin James Sarjeant (note there is no G in Sarjeant), Morten Risager and Nico Covatti all have weighed in when required.

One change comes at the bottom end where recent addition Danyon Hume misses out through injury so Connor Coles comes in. Connor is one of a kind in that he is the only rider in British Speedway whose dad was married on the centre green at Powderhall Stadium previous home of the Monarchs.

The Monarchs will need to be at their best from the off if we are to progress and our opening pairing of Sam and Ryan will be key in getting us off to a strong start. Both have had news this week with Sam playing a key role in helping his EL team Wolves bounce back from a big deficit to empty Poole out of the playoffs and Ryan of course has announced this will be his last year in British Speedway.

Middle order is our German pairing of Erik and Mark Riss. Mark is starting to show some solid scoring and both will need to be at their best against a strong Witches middle pairing.

The Monarchs go into the match with one change in the line-up also as Ben Hopwood continues to deputise for Dan Bewley.

So is this the end of the Monarchs reign will we give up our title for the first time since 2013. There’s only one way to find out, get yourself to the Dale tomorrow night and cheer on our boys to make sure this doesn’t happen.