Edinburgh Monarchs v Berwick Bandits

REPORT Friday 25th April 2008, 10:00pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

In spite of more atrocious Friday weather we saw some excellent speedway and plenty of incident as the Scotwaste Monarchs established a 16-point lead in the KO Cup tie.

The efforts of the riders deserve great praise. They put everything into it and some of the heats involving Makovsky and Bager against Fisher, Grieves and Wethers were remarkable for the conditions.

For the first 9 heats everything went smoothly for Monarchs who established a 20-point lead. Had they built on that the tie would probably have been over.

But that didn?t happen ? the Bandits staged a fightback and along with a couple of vital errors by Edinburgh, we were looking at a much closer match. When Makovsky and Bager were on a 5-1 in the final heat it did seem that the final margin would be 7.

Fortunately Ryan Fisher wasn?t settling for that and fought past Bager, who then brought him down and suffered an exclusion. The heat was rerun and after two first bend incidents in which Makovsky moved aggressively into Fisher, he was ruled out too.

Monarchs gratefully took the gift 5-0 even though James Grieves had to push home for almost a lap, finishing with a highly impressive somersault!

Fisher passed Magosi to give Monarchs a 4-2 start, and we had the same result in heat 2 (won by Lee Dicken) though Aaron Summers was at one point on a paid win. Aarnio neatly passed him using the second bend inside line, a useful one all night.

Grieves and Jonasson took a third 4-2 in heat 3 in spite of an impressive ride by Bager.

Makovsky impressed too with an inside line ride to win heat 4 in a style which would have been beyond him a year or two back.

Thomas Jonasson had his best home ride so far backing Grieves to a 5-1 in heat 5, and when we took another in heat 6 from Fisher and Sneddon (Makovsky falling), it looked like Monarchs were going to take a very easy win. The score was 25-11 at this point.

Matthew Wethers did brilliantly to pass Bager for a heat 7 win, with Dicken taking a point, and we took a fifth 4-2 from heat 8, quickly followed by a sixth from Grieves (who won a great battle with Makovsky) and Jonasson in heat 9. Score now 37-17.

The Monarchs? march now started to stutter. Bager slipped past Fisher and Sneddon in heat 10, and the race when stopped when Derek fell. 4-2 to Berwick.

Then Makovsky won heat 11 with brilliant use of the inside line, and Bager gave Grieves his first defeat in an outstanding heat 12. Even though the rain was falling and track getting ever wetter, the riders put everything into this heat.

It was quite surprising that Berwick hadn?t used their TR two heats earlier but Makovsky successfully took 6 from heat 13, and the gap was now down to 15.

Heat 14 looked favourable to us, but it didn?t turn out that way. Thomas flew round the outside to lead with Lee Dicken also gating well, but Lee spun off on the first corner and brought down Franchetti.

Worse still, Thomas missed the gate in the rerun and fell towards the end of the heat with Bandits on a 5-1. Gap down to 11!

Bandits were on a roll now, and then came the drama of heat 15. They really should have had a 4-2 at least but riding which was over-enthusiastic at best cost them points.

The Berwick leg promises to be very interesting indeed.

HERMISTON MONARCH OF THE MATCH: Ryan Fisher