Image Credit: Ron MacNeill

Monarchs Aiming For The Summit

PREVIEW Sunday 30th July 2017, 2:38pm

by Graham Muncie

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Parsons Peebles Monarchs will be looking to build on their excellent win at Ipswich on Thursday night as they make the relatively short trip to Newcastle this Sunday.

This will be our second visit to Brough Park this season and we will be hoping to go one better than last time when a Max Clegg inspired performance led to a 45-45 draw although it could be said this felt more like a defeat after being 4 up going into the last race only to concede a 5-1.

Of course this time we will not have Max at reserve but the Monarchs will be hoping for a repeat of Thursday’s performance from Josh Pickering who was excellent in recording a paid ten score. If he can replicate this we may well be in with a chance once again.

Brough Park is a track very few riders would class as a favourite but our top 3 have all had excellent matches there in the past. The same can be said for Theo who as is the case at most tracks we visit has the most experience around Brough in the team and as always the hope will be that Mitchell can take points of his opposite number.

The Diamonds are a different looking side than the one we gained the 2 league points against back in May with Lewis Rose unfortunately facing a spell on the sidelines following his crash at Armadale the other week. This led to Rose re-breaking his collarbone and we wish him all the best in his recovery. Stepping into replace Lewis is one of the most experienced men in British speedway in the form of Stuart Robson. Robson has been around for many a year now starting his career way back in 1993 with the Diamonds. Now 40 Robson was seen as somewhat of a coup signing as the variances of the averages meant he was able to come in on an adjusted figure based on his Premiership performances this season rather than his average from the then Premier League last year. If Robson can find the form that made him one of the top men in the second tier not so long ago the Diamonds could be a dark horse for a later playoff push.

A second change to the Diamonds line-up from our last visit comes at reserve where Alfie Bowtell steps in. Bowtell being given his chance after impressing guesting against eh Diamonds for Berwick. Bowtell has impressed many with his steady style although some times this has not translated into points so far and it will go a long way to deciding the outcome of the match if we can keep Bowtell and his reserve partner Ben Hopwood quiet.

The Diamonds strength of course lies in their top end and once again we will need to go about nullifying the threat of Robert Lambert, Steve Worrall and Ludvig Lindgren in the way we did with Danny King, Rory Schlein and Justin Sedgmen on Thursday.

So another key Championship fixture awaits as head towards being 2 thirds of the way through our league campaign. Any leeway we felt we had after gaining 3 points at Ipswich on Thursday has been somewhat nullified by Sheffield’s big win at Berwick last night so we will be on the lookout for the win with the added bonus of if we can pull it off then we will regain top spot in the table