All To Do In The Second Leg

REPORT Sunday 10th October 2021, 9:11pm

by Graham Muncie

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The What the Fork Monarchs have left themselves with a mountain to climb after going down by 16 points at Ashfield in the first leg of the KO Cup semi final.

The Monarchs were behind from heat 1 and despite a mid meeting fight back 2 heat advantages to the home men in the last 2 races leaves the gap looking rather hefty.

Monarchs Kye Thomson who took 2 heat wins on the night saying after 'It's not ideal they ran away with it from the start. We tried to fight back but some of the boys the bikes were going nowhere. We'll just need to try our best in the 2nd leg and see what happens.'

As mentioned the home men started the stronger with 4 heat advantages in the first 6 races meaning a 12 point lead had already been built up and the Monarchs were in damage limitation mode.

The Armadale outfit did stem the tide a little with the next 5 races all being shared. The most eventful of which being heat 8 where Drew Kemp challenged for the lead this allowing Broc Nicol to attempt to dive under him to steal second the move didn't come off though as the riders clashed both coming down hard, thankfully both able to continue in the meeting.

Thomson would then win his next two races both times holding off hard charging Tigers and the hope in the Monarchs camp was the deficit could be cut in the final few heats.

This wasn't to be though as the home men kicked on again with a big 5-1 in heat 14 from Ton Brennan and Marcin Nowak over Josh Pickering.

The final heat would also see a home advantage as Craig Cook jetted from the tapes and with Brennan in 3rd the lead was its highest by meetings end.

So a lot to do for the Monarchs if they are to overcome the Tigers and claim that final spot

Full Result Details