Craig Cook - good show today Image Credit: Ron MacNeill

TWO INJURIES AT ASHFIELD

NEWS Sunday 28th August 2011, 9:24pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Scotwaste Monarchs lost Matthew Wethers and Kyle Howarth in the first six heats at Ashfield today, leaving the other five riders to fight on for an eventual 39-55 defeat.

This represented a bit of an improvement on Friday's performance, with some reasonable rides by most of the side, though Glasgow did not pile on the agony and gave stand-in Adam McKinna as many rides as Morris.

It is too early to say how serious our injuries are, but it seems possible they are not too bad ? Matthew had blurred vision after banging his head in heat 3, and Kyle a hand injury after clattering the boards in heat 6. Both incidents occurred on the problem third bend, where the notorious bump was all too obvious.

The heat 3 incident involved Andrew coming off right in front of Matthew who had nowhere to go. The skipper was down for quite a while and eventually went to hospital. Andrew was not 100% either and didn't feel fit though he rode on.

Kyle was chasing hard in heat 6 but bounced off on the bump and went backwards into the fence.

We ran heat 8 with just one rider while Byron took 7 rides and rode on his own in the rerun of heat 3 and in heat 14.

On the more positive side, Craig Cook had easily his best Ashfield meeting, winning heat 6 from Screen and taking a paid win in the final race.

Kevin Wolbert won two, and was backed by Kalle Katajisto for a 5-1 in heat 11 over Grieves ? a big surprise to put it mildly after three feeble rides by Kalle earlier.

Our other race win came in heat 12, Andrew's last ride.

So we go to Scunthorpe tomorrow for a 3pm start, not quite sure how many of the side will be fit.