Tigers Tamed

REPORT Sunday 25th July 2021, 6:31pm

by Graham Muncie

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The What the Fork Monarchs did what they do best on Sunday afternoon coming back from the disappointment of a home defeat on Friday to turn the tables with a famous win at Glasgow.

The Tigers were previously unbeaten at home and would have went in buoyed by that victory at Armadale but the spirit in this Monarchs team can not be tapered and on a baking hot day on and off the track it was the Blue and Gold that stuck to their task the best.

Team manager Alex Harkess delighted with his sides efforts saying after 'In theory we've probably been better away from home, I can't give you an answer to why. I felt coming through we might win. I felt if our heat leaders did what they can do they'd win enough races and we'd just need the rest to pick up the odd points and today we had Kye scoring points and that was the big difference.'

The basis of the Monarchs victory was the heat leader trio of Sam Masters, Joshie Pickering and Richie Worrall all in top form winning 9 races between them and with Kye Thomson having his best away match of the season the visitors had 4 riders all capable of winning any race.

Masters set the scene with a tapes to flag victory in heat 1 but with partner Willie Lawson at the back nothing was gained.

Heat 2 saw the home men take the lead as Justin Sedgmen and Connor Bailey took a 4-2 over Lawson.

The lead would be extended in heat 6 as home number 1 Craig Cook bested Worrall while Broc Nicol pipped Lawson on the line and the Tigers lead was now 4.

This would be wiped out in the next race as Pickering and Thomson took a heat maximum over home guest Jye Etheridge and Sedgmen. Thomson doing all the hard work blasting round Etheridge after Pickering had made the gate.

A remarkable run of 7 shared heats would follow with some tremendous tussles among them not least heat 13 where 2 races in one saw Cook get the better of Masters while Worrall made sure Etheridge could inflict no damage.

This meant the teams were all square going into the last race and there was confidence in the Monarchs camp. Masters and Pickering were chosen and with the former blasting from the start and the latter slotting into third off the second bend it was perhaps the least eventful heat of the day albeit the most nerve wrecking.

4 flawless laps by the Monarchs pair followed to send all of a Blue and Gold persuasion into delirium!

Full Result Details