The narrowest of wins

REPORT Saturday 16th June 2018, 1:06am

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Staggs Bar Monarchs scraped home tonight in an exciting finish against Newcastle, going in to the last heat level and taking a 4-2 after Stuart Robson had been excluded.

Team manager Alex Harkess said "That was far too close for comfort and we didn't get the improvements in the team we were looking for after last week's defeat. Erik Riss in particular was superb and his riding secured the victory for us."

Monarchs were briefly six points ahead in mid-match but for much of the night it was very close, and absolutely level after heats 4, 5, 12 and 14! The final four heats finished 1-5, 5-1, 1-5, 4-2.

Monarchs' top two of Erik Riss and Ricky Wells gained the positive results in heat 13 and 15 but they admitted it wasn't easy. Captain Erik said "The track was easy to ride tonight but that made the job of myself, Ricky and Mark harder." In fact Erik did miss the start in both runnings of the vital heat 15 but superb first corners followed by powerful drives up the straight took him to the front both times.

At the first time of asking Stuart Robson came off and was excluded, and with Kus at the rear this could well have meant that he should start 15 metres back in the rerun. However this new rule wasn't invoked so Riss had to once again pull off a surging overtake on the first lap to ensure victory.

Erik Riss led the way with 14 and Ricky Wells was also in double figures. Erik's only dropped point came in heat 11 when he broke the tapes, coming off 15 metres in the rerun and pipping Lindgren for second on the line. Both Joel Andersson (two wins) and Josh Pickering (one win) scored 7 and both can be happy with these returns. Mark Riss fell in heat 14 while coming past Ashley Morris and finished on just 5, after winning his opening ride.

It was down at reserve that the home team struggled the most, with Coty Garcia not scoring on a machine that looked very slow, and Max Ruml still well short of his early season form. The American appears to be short of confidence.

For Newcastle, Stuart Robson and Matej Kus won two heats each but perhaps the most notable performance came from Matthew Wethers. He used all his vast knowledge of the track where he rode for ten seasons, and made picking up points against the Monarchs' tail look very easy indeed.

Full Result Details