Tigers win with something to spare

REPORT Friday 9th June 2023, 11:36pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Stellar Monarchs could not raise their game to the level required for the Scottish derby, and suffered their third consecutive home league loss with Glasgow winning 51-39.

Although it felt that Glasgow held the upper hand most of the night, Monarchs did go into heat 14 still with a possible chance of taking something from the match. However when Lasse Fredriksen came down when in close proximity with Claus Vissing for the lead, Seth Perkin's decision to exclude the Norwegian virtually ended the home hopes.

Team manager Alex Harkess said "We haven't been good enough but we might still have forced a last heat decider. I didn't think that the referee made a very good decision in heat 14. However having said that, we let too many points slip away over the match."

The standout Monarch on the night was Richie Worrall with some of his typically outstanding first bend work, his trademark on his Armadale visits. His only defeat was to Chris Harris in heat 11 in Ritchie's tac sub ride. Even when not first from the tapes, his decisive moves round the first two turns were taking him to the front.

The other guest Lewis Kerr won heat 4 and put in plenty of effort all night, and between these two they kept us in the hunt. With the match lost, we didn't put Richie out in heat 15 – we might have made 40 if we had.

Monarchs own riders certainly did not perform well. No-one will be blaming new boy Bastian Borke other than to say that his starting was not very good. The rest of his four laps looked fine but he'll need to get out of the gate.

Kye is particularly disappointing at the moment, as surely he is aware, his move to King's Lynn should be a boost but he is struggling to regain the form of the last two years. Paco started with a last, won heat 8 and was unlucky to come to a sudden stop in heat 10 when dicing with Brennan and Vissing. Lasse down at reserve won heat 2 after leader Ace Pijper had fallen, took a good third in his next one but didn't add to that.

He was having a good tussle in heat 12 with Lee Complin but Lee lost control and brought Lasse down, and then Lasse was on the wrong end of things again in heat 14 as previously mentioned. We do need more points from Lasse at reserve and he deserves a change of luck.

Dayle Wood deserves a special mention. Inserted in the team as a 2-pointer, he had a fine ride in heat 2, passing and repassing with Lee Complin, and he picked up a second point later showing a steadiness which was just what was called for. Then when a bike was called for to get Kye out for heat 15, Dayle was first on the scene with a loan of his.

Tigers all performed well and showed a toughness as well as quality which was lacking in most of the home men. Harris, Brennan, Vissing, Basso and Complin all had as good meetings as they have had for a long time at Armadale, Marcin Nowak now seems to have no problem riding the place, and only the unfortunate Ace Pijper didn't have a points spree – though he might have done had he not come off when leading heat 2.

Best moment of the night for Monarchs' fans was seeing and hearing Josh Pickering saying he is now on the road to fitness and might be back in action before too many more meetings have passed. We can't wait!

Full Result Details