Monarchs Fall Short As Tigers Progress

REPORT Sunday 31st July 2022, 6:22pm

by Graham Muncie

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The What the Fork Monarchs battled hard but ultimately came up short of the match point they required going down 53-37 at Ashfield on Sunday a result that sees Glasgow move onto the final of the Jubilee League on points difference.

The Monarchs main issue on the day being a lack of race wins with only 4 in total and with 2 of these being shared races anyway the Monarchs were unable to mount the challenge required leaving team boss Alex Harkess to say "We weren't getting the race winners and picking up the momentum that we needed and like we normally do. Normally there is someone who starts the momentum going and everyone clicks in, but we couldn't get that going today which is where Sam (Masters) was a big miss today. Josh Pickering wasn't able to get himself into the big points scoring positions so then you have to fall back on your 3 and 4 and they weren't doing it either, so it became an impossible job. Even when we were making the starts, we weren't riding competitive 1st and 2nd bends."

The writing was on the wall fairly early as the Tigers raced out to an 8-point lead after 4 races the major incident in these heats involving Tigers captain Ulrich Ostergaard who caught some unexpected grip and crashed while leading heat 4 this causing him to withdraw from the meeting with a hand injury.

With Ben Basso, Tom Brennan and guest Richard Lawson all in fine form Ostergaard's points scoring wasn't overly missed the rest of the way as the Tigers continued to push their advantage. It was heat 8 before the Monarchs would taste the chequered flag for the first time as Jacob Hook made the jump and with Lasse Frederiksen in 3rd it was 1 of only 2 heat advantages on the day also. The strength of the Tigers start though meaning that this only reduced the deficit to 12 points.

Pickering would take the first of 2 wins for the day in the next race to maintain the Monarchs slim chances but with Lawson winning heat 10 and Brennan heats 11 and 12 the home men's lead had been built up to 16 points and this meant the Monarchs needed 14 from the final 3 races.

The Monarchs did take a 4-2 in heat 13 with guest for Masters Ryan Douglas taking the win but when Jacob Hook came down chasing the Tigers pair in heat 14 that was that and it was the Tigers who were now guaranteed to progress.

Pickering did end his day on a high winning heat 15 but it was too little too late for the Monarchs who now turn their attention to a pivotal Championship clash against Plymouth next Friday as they look to seal their place in the end of season playoffs.

Full Result Details