Workington Comets v Edinburgh Monarchs

REPORT Saturday 12th May 2007, 10:00pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

A strange-looking Monarchs' side were level after 10 heats at Workington but finally went down 40-50.

We knew we were going to be without William Lawson, for whom Ricky Ashworth proved an excellent guest, but in addition Ronnie Correy called off with a leg problem from his fall the night before.

We brought in Newcastle's Czech Josef Franc, and 'Pepe' was quickly in the wars.

Heat 1 took three attempts to start, and in the second one Carpanese straightened up and sent Franc spinning into the fence. His bike was damaged and on his other machine, he struggled round at the back while Derek rode a good steady heat for a second place.

Charles Wright won the reserves heat in which we probably hoped we would take an advantage.

The racing in the first half of the match was completely processional so there is very little to be said except that Ashworth had an excellent heat 3 win over James Wright. Ricky has such a watchable style, very well suited to the big tracks.

We were 20-22 down at heat 7, not too bad although Comets had by then used all of John Branney's required three rides.

At last we were awoken from slumber by a great overtake by Derek Sneddon in heat 8. With Matthew clear, Derek was struggling at the back until he hit the outside on the 3rd/4th bend and pulled off a brilliant sweep to go round Charles Wright and Carpanese. The 5-1 gave us the lead.

Henrik then made a great start in heat 9, taking James Wright wide round the first bend. He held the lead for a lap but wasn't going quickly enough, and Wright passed him on the outside.

It was obvious that Craig Branney had him in his sights too, and with Henrik (as Sam Ermolenko would say) 'riding defensively' - ie constantly looking back and trying to block - it was no surprise when Branney came through as well. So we were behind again.

Ashworth did a fine job again, beating Stonehewer in heat 10, and what an excellent effort by Andrew Tully to push past Carpanese. That leveled the scores at 30-30.

We then saw Derek controversially excluded as Charles Wright came off at the first bend of heat 11. For my money Derek was simply moving to the outside line having got ahead of Wright on the run to the corner, and certainly was not as bad as Carpanese in heat 1.

However we had to swallow a 2-4 there, then shared heat 12 behind James Wright.

The big heats were coming up now, and although Franc held second for a bit in heat 13, he was passed by Nieminen as we lost a 5-1 with Henrik nowhere.

We needed something out of heat 14. Matthew passed the initial leader Charles Wright and won comfortably, and there was an excellent tussle as Tully tried to pass Wright with Craig Branney snapping at his heels. It could have gone our way but in the end Andrew finished pointless.

The match was decided, and Comets rubbed it in with an easy closing 5-1.

Full Result Details