Rene Bach overshooting the inside line in heat 15 Image Credit: Ron MacNeill

TEN POINT LOSS LEAVES US TOP

NEWS Saturday 25th April 2015, 10:08pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The under strength Border Roofing Monarchs kept things reasonably close at Workington tonight before losing 40-50, which leaves us at the top of the section but not absolutely certain to finish there.

It would take big wins home and away by Workington against Berwick next weekend to take the Comets to the top of the section, and if that happened we would be hoping to take the 'best second place' position in the semis.

Had Wolbert not been on one of his German jaunts, we would have finished the job tonight. Rider replacement achieved 3+1, mostly from Erik Riss's very welcome paid win in heat three.

It was altogether a strange night, with gating all-important, and we had a huge 50 minute delay before heat 15 was run following a nasty crash for Rusty Harrison. When the final heat was run we needed a 5-1 for a point, but in fact we had to work very hard to squeeze out Howarth for a 3-3.

Most of the team enjoyed some success with Justin Sedgmen finishing top scorer. He won his first two, then ran two poor thirds before bouncing back to win heat 14 (an awarded race) from the back.

Oddly enough Craig Cook struggled badly from the starts, losing 5-1s in his first two heats. He eventually won heat 13 before helping Sam Masters to that shared final race.

Sam won a couple of races but was left stranded in heat 13 after Howarth took him wide on the first bend.

Both Erik Riss and Rob Branford took some useful points while Max Clegg managed to pick up a point in heat 2.

We must now wait for results elsewhere to see if we are in the semis, and hope that there are not too many more hidden German events to weaken the side.