Good Win But Not Enough

REPORT Saturday 1st October 2016, 1:17am

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Border Roofing Monarchs rode well tonight to record a 53-37 win over Ipswich, but it wasn’t enough to overturn the Witches’ first leg advantage as they progressed to a semi-final against Somerset on a 95-85 aggregate.

The weather again was very much against us during the day, far wetter than the forecast suggested, but hard work by the track staff left us with a raceable track.

Alex Harkess said “I felt beforehand that heat 3 was so important, that when we got a 5-1 in that it was a boost. It was a tall order though and we needed everything to go right, which didn’t happen. We’ve had a decent season but I wish we’d done better in the first leg!”

For six races, the aggregate win looked a possibility. In spite of Danny King’s opening heat victory, we had opened up a 24-12 lead and the Witches were on the ropes.

We could not afford many heat reverses though, and Kevin Wolbert seems to have a regular problem with the inside gate in heat 7. That was the case again and Kevin could make no impression on Covatti and Risager after they had made the start.

Heat 8 brought out probably the best individual ride of the night from James Sarjeant, who had started with two last places. He pushed hard on Ryan Fisher, tried a cutback off the second corner and then switched to the outside and sailed to the front. It was an important ride and we had gone from 12 ahead after 6 to just 8 ahead after 8.

The Riss brothers both rode well, starting with a 5-1, and they gated again in heat 9. Barker slipped inside Mark Riss but we were back on the rails again, with a follow-up from captain Masters and Ryan Fisher in heat 10 with a 5-1 over Covatti and Risager. That was 37-23 and we were still in with a shout.

Unfortunately the start of heat 11 was chaotic. Referees have been hard on jumped starts this season, quite rightly, but they have this notion that if the first ‘jumper’ doesn’t get an advantage then anything else is OK. Ben Hopwood was first to move but then stopped, but he had caused the whole start to be a mess, leaving Wolbert stranded against the second ‘jumper’ Sarjeant and Danny King. It was a most unsatisfactory start but was allowed to go, and that was game over.

Covatti won heat 12 with a spectacular outside run, Sam Masters got his revenge on King in heat 13 and Mark Riss rode very well to win heat 14.

We finished with a strong gate from Erik Riss off gate 1 in heat 15, riding a good heat to head home the hard-pressing Covatti.

We didn’t make it but we put up a good enough fight. Over the two legs, Ipswich’s win was well deserved and our first leg came back to haunt us.