Edinburgh Monarchs
Glasgow Tigers
League Cup
PP
PP
Friday 15th April 2016
Armadale Stadium

They say three is the magic number and this week we go into our third scheduled home match of the season hoping the weather gods are kinder to us than they have been so far.

One match postponed and one heavily impacted due to the rain have left the Blue and Gold faithful looking to the sky looking for a ray of sunshine.

Allowing for the weather being in our favour we face another tough challenge as we face pre-season title favourites and our nearest and dearest rivals the Glasgow ‘Allied Vehicles’ Tigers.

The Tigers may well feel that for them to qualify from the Premier Trophy group that they need to repeat Berwick’s victory of last week and they certainly have the quality to do so. Much has been said about the Tigers (including by myself when previewing the Ashfield fixture from a couple of weeks ago) since the arrival of the Facenna’s at the helm before the start of last season and after a year to bed in they will surely be going for Gold this time around.

When looking at the Tigers line-up it is impossible not to notice the strength at the top end. They are undoubtedly strengthened by the late change which sees Ricky Wells guesting for ‘flu victim Richard Lawson, with excellent backup from ex-Monarch Aaron ‘Spud’ Summers and the two big signings over the winter Ben Barker and Richie Worrall. However the standout performances so far this season have come from the bottom end of the team. Many of the detractors of the Glasgow outfit at the start of the season cited the perceived long tail as a potential shortcoming. So far this has proved completely unfounded with Nike Lunna, Fernando Garcia and Danny Ayres being paid for 17 and 20 in their two matches so far. Ayres is without a doubt the new darling of the Ashfield faithful. The fans immediately taking to his flamboyant style and showmanship this being backed up with scores of 5 and 7+1 respectively. The season is still young but if the Tigers bottom end can keep up this run of scoring they will take some stopping. This will be the first away match of the season for the Tigers though and it will be interesting to see if they can maintain the form they have showed round their home patch so far.

After the disappointment of defeat to Berwick last week our Border Roofing Monarchs will be looking to bounce back and show what we are made off, one man who has started the season on fire is Sam Masters. Sam winning 9 of his 10 races in the Monarchs colours so far this season and a similar performance will be required to see off the Tigers top men on Friday. A change in team line-up moves Erik to number 2 the Monarchs management feeling that a switch with Jye will benefit the young Aussie taking the pressure away from a heat 1 appearance. The key battles could come in the middle orders where Kevin and Ryan will be looking to up their performances from so far this season. Kevin normally seems to find an extra gear against our friends from the west and Ryan put in his best performance of the season guesting at Berwick last Saturday after diagnosing some clutch problems after last Friday and we will be looking for this to continue this Friday. One man who made light of last week’s difficult conditions was Max Clegg. Max was outstanding and his heat 2 victory (video available in the EM:TV section) will take some beating for race of the season.

So another key battle beckons this Friday. Many will have written off the Monarchs chances to complete a League Cup treble but this team still believes. A victory on Friday without Glasgow scoring the consolation point and maximum points at Berwick on Saturday and we are back on track. Easy..... right!