League Campaign Closes Friday Night

PREVIEW Friday 27th September 2019, 11:34am

by Graham Muncie

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Staggs Bar Monarchs bring the curtain down on a disappointing Championship campaign on Friday night as the Newcastle Diamonds head for Armadale with tapes due to fly at 19.30.

The Diamonds will look back on their own campaign as not as good as hoped as well as they have languished towards the bottom of the table for the entirety of the year, however there is still a chance for a big silver lining for the Tynesiders being as they still have a KO cup final against Redcar to come.

The team looked to be well served in the heat leader department at the start of the year with Steve Worrall being backed up by Lasse Bjerre and Thomas Jorgensen, Neither have had a year to remember though and Jorgensen also misses out tonight with rider replacement in operation with all bar Worrall due to replace the likeable Dane.

Elsewhere there have been success stories not least in 2 former Monarchs Max Clegg and Matty Wethers. Clegg has enjoyed his finest season in the sport with his average now up over 5 and for the first time in his career he would have enjoyed a prolonged spell in the main body of the team if not for some shrewd management by George English in making replacements that allowed Clegg to spend more time as a powerful reserve. Wethers has had an Indian summer of sorts as the 34 year old has averaged close to 2 points more than his starting figure. Both will be expected to pose a big threat to the Monarchs in this one.

Another bright spark in the Diamonds season has been the introduction of experienced Ulrich Ostergaard, the combative Dane will be looking to be a trump card for the in the closing weeks of the season from reserve.

Danny Philipps completes the line-up and for Danny it has been another season of progress although it has to be said that the vast majority of his scoring has come at Brough Park rather than on the road.

For the home men it will be the first meeting as a 1-7 since the disappointment of the playoff hope ending weekend of defeats at Berwick and Newcastle 3 weeks ago. The team will line-up as expected with Sam Masters returning from missing the pairs due to the birth of his son and with a marathon trip for at least 3 of the team with Ricky, Cam and James all having been in action at Poole on Thursday in a remarkable match in front of the BT sport cameras.

The name of the game in this match is just to pick up the 3 points and cement an 8th place finish that no one in the camp will be happy with overall.

Despite this being the last league action of the campaign there is still more matches to come with the always tasty Scottish Cup home and away ties to be announced.

That is in the future though and all eyes first will go to this week and the Diamonds, this will be the 3rd match-up of the teams at the Dale this season and the other two have been among the best meetings of the season andlooking at the respective teams a repeat of that looks to be in the offing.

As always the only place to see the action is trackside….

See You There!