Champs will be toughest so far

NEWS Wednesday 6th July 2022, 9:37pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Friday's visit to Armadale by the Poole Pirates, Championship winners in 2021, will be the toughest test so far of the Monarchs' credentials as Playoff candidates. The Pirates won at Armadale in both the league and the Knockout Cup final in the latter part of last season, and appear to have a similar side this time round.

Monarchs have suffered two home defeats so far but have steadied up recently, and showed excellent form in despatching Playoff rivals Scunthorpe last Friday. Poole will be at a different level though with heat leaders Danny King, Steve Worrall and Richard Lawson backed up by some talented riders.

Poole have wobbled a bit recently in their home form with a loss to Leicester and a draw with Plymouth, but a glance at their lineup will show that they obviously have the firepower to cause problems for any team they visit.

Both teams will be at full strength which tends to be a rare occurrence at this stage of the season, and top class action is anticipated!

Team manager Alex Harkess knows it will be a very hard match. "Poole are still a very solid team in spite of a couple of poor recent results. They are the kind of team you don't want to allow to get their tails up. We need to do what we did against Scunthorpe and get points on the board early, and get race winners so that they don't believe they are going to walk all over us.

"Last season when they came and won, they were winning races virtually all the way through so we need to be getting these race wins as we should be doing at home, and taking it from there."

Friday's match will be streamed on the British Speedway Network to which there is a link on the Monarchs' website. Gold Members and Subscribers may still access the Monarchs' own stream.

FRIDAY'S MATCH:

Friday 8th July: Edinburgh Monarchs v Poole Pirates (Championship), Armadale, 7:30pm

WTF MONARCHS: Sam Masters (capt.), Lasse Fredriksen, Kye Thomson, Paco Castagna, Josh Pickering, Jacob Hook, James Sarjeant.

PIRATES: Steve Worrall, Drew Kemp, Danny King (capt.), Zach Cook, Richard Lawson, Ben Cook, Nathan Ablitt.

Full Result Details