Derby Day Take 2

PREVIEW Sunday 28th April 2019, 12:44pm

by Graham Muncie

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Well after the disappointment of Friday nights rain off the Staggs Bar Monarchs head west to take on the Glasgow Tigers in another big Championship Shield match on Sunday afternoon.

As mentioned in the preview for Friday's clash with Berwick having taken a head start in the group with their maximum points victory at Newcastle both of the sides in action today are in catch up mode needing at least one away victory from the matches remaining alongside an unblemished home record should they wish to overthrow the Borderers and win the group.

This will be only the Tigers second home match as a team this year although 4 were also involved in Craig Cook's testimonial last week. This does not mean the Tigers can be caught cold at Ashfield though with their home form already looking strong with a 22 point victory over the Bandits in the one home match so far and also numerous practice days having taken place.

The Tigers would have taken confidence in the fact that all bar Luke Chessell were paid for at least 1 victory in that defeat of Berwick with the heat leader trio of Cook, Jensen and Vissing recording 11 wins or paid wins between them and James Sarjeant, Paul Starke and Kyle Bickley all recording at least 7 points also.

If the Tigers are in that sort of form today then the Staggs Bar Monarchs will need to be at their very best if we are to come away with anything from the encounter. The benefit of the Cook testimonial last week was that it also gave a few of our guys a chance to get to grips with the Ashfield circuit with Ricky, Justin and Josh all in action. It was a bit of a mixed bag of results for our boys with Ricky and Josh both recording heat wins as part of 7 and 6 point scores respectively, Justin will be looking for better today being as he could only muster 4 points although with the calibre of riders in the field there was no real shame in this.

The rest of the Monarchs have all had their moments at Ashfield, Cameron being paid for double figures in his visit there with Ipswich last year, Willie of course a former Tiger and Joel having had a paid victory in heat 8 on his last visit. Luke meanwhile will be looking to build on his solid start to the season and carry on with his points scoring.

So all in all another exciting match lies ahead (are there anything but in this group) as both teams look to stake a claim on the Bandits position at the top of the group and clinch that guaranteed semi final spot.

If you can't make it to Ashfield then keep an eye on the Monarchs website for live updates throughout and for those in attendance let's make that fourth bend a cauldron of noise and cheer our boys on.

See you there!

Full Result Details