Tough Task in the Knockout Cup

The Border Roofing Monarchs didn’t ride well at Ashfield today and it will take an exceptional performance in the second leg on 26th August if we are to reach the semis.

Monarchs’ boss John Campbell said “We don’t have any excuses. I can’t remember the last time we were so bad. The Glasgow fans will certainly believe they can’t lose.

“It was a shocking performance. Difficult to believe the reserves could be so good on Friday but so bad today.

“However, it’s not over till it’s over, we have a team full of Armadale track experts and they haven’t so we will be going for it on 26th August.”

Our only race winner in the early stages was Ryan Fisher in heat 3, heading the strong pairing of Richie Worrall and Rene Bach. We had a long run of second places but had slipped 34-20 behind by the time of our next race winner which was Erik Riss in heat 10 with an excellent win over Lawson.

We then lost another 5-1 in heat 11, 18 down and at this point there was a track inspection following some rain. The match was eventually called off after heat 14 with the score at 54-30, and we can hardly deny that the home team would have been favourites to take an advantage in heat 15.

None of our side hit their best form. In the case of Sam Masters it was perhaps tough to expect him to be at his very best after two days of World Cup racing, but whatever the reasons we will have to perform a great deal better in the second leg.

Up For The Cup

After the proposed first leg was washed out at Armadale a fortnight ago we go into Knockout Cup quarter final action tomorrow against the Glasgow ‘Allied Vehicle’ Tigers at Ashfield tomorrow.

This may be the shortest preview of the season from me as this is already the 7th scheduled match (although 3 have fallen foul to the weather) between the two sides so not sure I have much left to say.

This is our 3rd visit to Ashfield so far this season and we have been on the receiving end of 19 and 12 point defeats so far and it would have to be said we will need to do better than this should we wish to progress to the Semi final of the only 7 man competition we failed to retain last year.

The one advantage we will have is that we will go into the meeting with our full 1-7 and with our reserves showing the best form they have all season. We have all watched on in interest at the exploits of the Monarchs top 3 in the world cup and we can only take pride in the fact that no other team in British Speedway Elite or Premier league had as many participants in the competition as the Monarchs.

As previously mentioned we saw the best of Max and Dan on Friday both racing to their top scores of the season and recording 3 race wins each. Our youngsters will be key again as our reserves have only recorded 2 and 4 respectively in our two trips west so far this season. Glasgow go into the match with Nike Lunna at reserve having just returned from a broken hand and he looks like he has never been away having rocketed to 7 paid 9 and 7 paid 10 in Glasgow’s two away matches at Berwick and Redcar last midweek. Joining Nike at reserve in a change to the Glasgow line-up is Luke Chessell. Chessell replaces Danny Ayres who is forced to sit out with concussion and will look to replicate the scoring of the Ashfield cult hero.

It is hard to gauge Glasgow’s form around Armadale to hazard a guess at what kind of score line will be required for either side to feel confident of progression after tomorrow as Glasgow have only visited Armadale once this season and on that occasion the Monarchs prevailed 46-43 however both teams have since made line-up changes and it has to be said that on that night there was very little to race for as Glasgow had already progressed to the semi’s of the League Cup.

As we do every match though the Border Roofing Monarchs will go into the match looking for a victory and if this is not to come then will look to keep it as close as possible for the return leg at Armadale on the 26th.

Glasgow Allied Vehicle Tigers

1- Richard Lawson

2- Fernando Garcia

3- Richie Worrall

4- Rene Bach

5- Aaron Summers

6- Nike Lunna

7- Luke Chessell (Guest)

Edinburgh Border Roofing Monarchs

1- Sam Masters

2- Mark Riss

3- Erik Riss

4- Ryan Fisher

5- Kevin Wolbert

6- Max Clegg

7- Dan Bewley