AN AWAY POINT AT BERWICK

NEWS Saturday 10th April 2010, 11:58pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Scotwaste Monarchs grabbed a match point by scoring a 4-2 in the final heat at Berwick, narrowing the gap to a 42-48 defeat in the Premier Trophy match.

In truth it was a disappointing performance, considering that Bandits lost their high scoring reserve Craig Branney after a crash in heat 4. It seemed a simple fall when Branney was chasing Tully and Katajisto, but it was followed by a lengthy spell of treatment before Branney was ruled out.

Our main successes were Ryan Fisher with 3 wins in his dozen, including the final heat, plus Kalle Katajisto who had paid 11 from his first four before fading, and Matthew Wethers whose 7+1 didn't do justice to some clever riding. He had to use Fisher's machine in his first heat after hitting a last minute bike problem.

Andrew Tully scored 5 after winning his first race. When behind he stuck slavishly to the inside line which was never likely to be successful, and he showed the folly of that himself by flying past Anders Andersen in heat 9 with a last bend outside pass.

He was unlucky in heat 13, of which more later.

Jozsef Tabaka was making his first appearance at Berwick, and Max Dilger was pointless there last season. In Max's case he had a bandage over the hand he injured yesterday. It would be harsh perhaps to be too critical at this stage but in truth they were too slow and too inclined to ride the inside.

We were just 2 down going in to heat 13, in which we saw the most unsatisfactory start any of us are ever likely to see. On gate 1, Adrian Rymel pulled right back from the tapes, next to him Ryan Fisher looked round to see what he was doing, and no sooner had Ryan turned back to face the tapes than they went up!

Makovsky shot away followed by Tully, then the other two who were understandably startled that the race had begun. It seemed that in trying to regain ground Ryan knocked Andrew into the fence, but Ms Horley excluded Andrew.

The only reasonable decision was to slam the red lights on right away and stop the race, and bring all four back. The fact that this wasn't done represents gross ineptitude on the part of the referee.

In the rerun Ryan missed the start, swept past Rymel and then fell going hard after Makovsky. That put us 6 behind, and when we lost a 4-2 in heat 14 Bandits had won the match.

Rymel and Makovsky made the gate in heat 15 too, but they messed each other up on the first bend and this gave Fisher and Wethers the chance to nip through to gain a 4-2 and a match point.