Edinburgh Monarchs
Ipswich Witches
Championship
PP
PP
Friday 18th August 2017
Armadale Stadium

Another week another tough challenge for the Parsons Peebles Monarchs as the Ipswich Witches head north once again on the lookout for SGB Championship points.

Not that any extra motivation would be needed for such a power packed line-up as the Witches but the Suffolk men will be looking to overturn the defeat to the Monarchs at Foxhall a couple of weeks ago. This being the only time they have been turned over on their own patch this season will make them doubly keen to make amends.

The main driving force will of course be clinching the points required to confirm an end of season playoff spot and currently both teams look well placed for this although any more home slip ups for either could put this in danger.

The Witches have a balanced line-up with an experienced and strong spearhead in the form of former British champion Danny King. King is undoubtedly one of the top men in the league and is equally at home on both large and small tracks and sports a high score of paid 15 at Armadale to his name. He is always a tough opponent for our top men and no doubt this will no different this week.

Luckless Kyle Newman slots in at number 2. Newman has had an injury plagued season that has stunted what he would have hoped to have been the season he kicked on at Championship level into a true heat leader. There is still plenty of time for this though as Newman is still only 25 and the signs are there that one of these days everything is going to fall into place. Remarkably despite it being a track he says he enjoys and is always keen to appear at Newman has a pretty abject record at the Dale with a sub 5 average from 10 visits. If this changes tomorrow though the Monarchs may very well be in trouble.

Number 3 and in the form of his life is Cameron Heeps, anyone who has seen his exploits for Somerset on BT over the last couple of weeks cannot have helped but been impressed and of course Heeps is a noted Armadale performer having been voted visitor of the year a few years back. Now stepping up into a heat leader rule Heeps is making good on the promise he has shown and is a key cog in the Withes machine.

Unfortunately the first of what would normally be two title winning Monarchs in the Witches outfit Justin Sedgmen misses out due to a shoulder injury. Sedgy was at Armadale as recently as last week where he looked a patch of his former self, this can be put down to that injury though and Justin had been forced onto the sidelines. Rider replacement comes into operation with Heeps, Newman and the reserves eligible to take Justin's rides.

The second Monarchs legend in the line-up comes in at 5 in the form of Roo Boy Rory Schlein. Schlein has made the most of his drop down to the Championship this year and is one of the classiest performers in the division, he almost certainly still knows the fastest way around Armadale having made the final of the Scottish open and raced to double digits on multiple occasions already this season.

Normally when a team puts together such a strong top 5 this comes to the detriment to the reserve berths but the Witches certainly picked shrewdly this season and this has not been the case. Danyon Hume who started the season in one of these berths was always fancied to improve on his 2 point average and he was far exceeding this with a 5 point average before he was lost for the season with a badly broken arm. Nathan Greaves stepped into the fray and he is using his Premiership experience with Wolves to good use currently averaging over 5 himself. With this Wolves experience Greaves is component of the smaller tracks and raced to a paid 7 score the last time the Witches visited.

Another one who has made a mockery of his starting 2 point average is number 7 Connor Mountain. Mountain has added over a point to this average and has been one of the biggest success stories of the fast track system. Remarkably this almost was not enough for Mountain to keep his spot as the Witches pondered changes that turned out not to fit into the averages. This would have been a travesty for the young Brit but hopefully this will not affect his confidence and he will continue to improve, although to be honest hopefully that may not be tomorrow night.

As for the Monarchs there are 2 changes to the team that returned to winning ways last Friday against Peterborough. Firstly we are delighted to welcome Mark Riss back into the fold. Mark has been out for 2 months now since damaging tendons in his hand coincidentally against the same opposition back in June. Mark has been practicing back in Germany and feels ready to return and the Monarchs are happy to have him back although we thank Theo Pijper for his efforts in Marks place.

Second is in the number 1 slot where Sam is still missing due to his broken collarbone. Sam went through an operation last Friday that appears to have gone well. Sam is targeting a return soon and with the Monarchs without a home match at Championship level till the 8th of September due to the restaging of both the Caledonian Riders Championship and Intermediate Challenge against Buxton to come in the next couple of weeks the hope is Sam will not miss to many more Monarchs matches. Stepping in to Sam’s slot this week is Chris Harris. We have all seen how good Harris is around the Dale in the last 2 weeks with his performances for Sheffield and Peterborough and we will be hoping a repeat of these is to come tomorrow night.

The rest for the line-up is as is with plenty of encouraging signs to take from last weekend. Ricky is back to his start of season form and romped to victory in heat 15 at Glasgow last weekend. Josh is in the form of his life racing to paid 25 points over the two matches last weekend. He credits a lot of this to changing clutch setups and working on his start with Erik and this is certainly paying dividends. Erik continues to impress and with Max and Mitch fairly consistent at home this has all the makings of the cracker.

So we have a potent visitor full of Armadale experience and pedigree and a Monarchs line-up getting closer and closer to full strength another exciting match awaits. You all know there is only one place to see it and that’s trackside. See you there!