Three Points After A See-Saw Match

The Border Roofing Monarchs emerged as 50-43 winners against top PL team Somerset Rebels tonight, a good result but an odd evening on which fortunes ebbed and flowed. This ensures that we will finish fourth in the table at the cutoff unless Ipswich take four points at Newcastle on Sunday.

Of course we already know that Ipswich will be our first opponents in the Playoffs, and we visit Foxhall Heath on Thursday.

It was a strange match against the Rebels whose three main guests all performed well. On our side we were also grateful to Thomas Jorgensen and NL man Ben Hopwood for some important points. But after storming to a lead of 18-6 after four heats, we were pegged back, and even though we led by 11 with three heats remaining we were still taken to a last heat decider.

It was one of these matches we occasionally have in which the uneven starting gates played far too much part. There were ten heats which finished as either 5-1 or (in one case) 8-1, and of these seven of the maximum advantages were recorded by gates 2 and 4. Riders from gates 2 and 4 totalled 59 against 34 from gates 1 and 3 (if the gates were even, you would expect the scores to be roughly even as well). It’s something we need to sort out before it unbalances any more matches, and it is generally the home side which suffers as they lose much of the advantage they should have.

Individually Sam Masters and Ryan Fisher went very well (both dropped points in just one heat and they had four 5-1s together) but Kevin Wolbert’s scoring went with the gates (wins off 2 and 4, well beaten off the other gates). Max Clegg scored reasonably but had a very disappointing heat 14 in which both visitors passed him. It was another very poor night for Mark Riss who did quite a bit of practise after the meeting.

The Rebels were very unlucky to lose Jake Allen with a head injury and we wish him well. He struggled in his first ride but went much better in heat 7, in which Max Clegg led but locked up and brought Allen down. That unfortunately caused the Aussie to fall heavily and put him out of the meeting.

Paul Starke always goes pretty well and Bradley Wilson Dean caught the eye by improving in every race.

Overall it wasn’t a great display by the home side but we’ll have a better chance if we can even up these gates.

Rebels With A Cause

With a Playoff position now secured the Monarchs look to clinch as high a seeding as possible with 3 points against the Somerset Cases Rebels in Premier League action this Friday night.

The match also has silverware on the line with the Premier Shield on the line being as it is last year’s PL champs facing off against the KO cup winners. The Monarchs have some work to do in that regards being as we currently face a deficit of 22 points from the first leg.

It is a different looking Somerset side that head north with 4 of their usual septet missing. The unfortunate Zach Wajtknecht appears to be done for the season and Josh Grajczonek, Rohan Tungate and Charles Wright all ride for Swindon at Lakeside. The always canny Somerset management appear to have booked well though with always popular guest Ricky Wells stepping in for Grajczonek and Newcastle pairing Ludvig Lindgren (fresh off his double max guesting for the Monarchs the other week) and Victor Palovaara coming in for Tungate and Wright respectively. Add this to the ever dependable Paul Starke and perhaps the best newcomer of the season in Jake Allen and we are in for some challenge to maintain our proud home record. The Rebels are well served at reserve with a successful first season ongoing for Bradley Wilson-Dean and Nathan Stoneman stepping in for Wajtknecht.

Somerset are looking to do the Premier League treble this year with semi final places already booked in both cup competitions and top spot in the table ensuring top seed in the playoffs and with a potential playoff semi final match up against the Monarchs on the cards they will be looking to put a marker down at Armadale tomorrow night.

It is also a makeshift Monarchs line-up that takes to the track. We had hoped to see Dan back in the fold but unfortunately that will not be the case with the youngster still not feeling up to the task. Dan appears to be over the physical side of his big off at Newcastle however the concussion is still causing concern with the Cumbrian hotshot complaining of dizziness when turning his head. We wish him all the best and hope to see him back sooner rather than later. At time of writing we are still looking for a guest although as we all know his points scoring ability is almost impossible to replace with those available. Erik also misses out as he looks to carry on his excellent start to the world u21 championship with all action Berwick star Thomas Jorgensen stepping into Monarchs fold.

While it has now been a fortnight since the last time the Monarchs rode as a septet it has been a successful week for certain members of the Monarchs line-up. We will welcome the newly crowned British u19 champion Max Clegg back to the Dale after his sublime 15 point max at Birmingham on Wednesday. Sam was a crucial team member in the newly crowned Danish Champions Region Varde and was an excellent 2nd in the PLRC last year and although not lining up for us tomorrow night Erik would have been happy to extend his lead at the top of the World Longtrack championship last weekend.

So an interesting battle awaits as we move ever closure to the main event and the play offs as we look to make it a hat trick of league titles and coming up against the champions elect may well give us a barometer as to how we stand.