Edinburgh Monarchs v Newcastle Diamonds

A spirited performance by a desperately unlucky Monarchs team was not quite enough to take the points against Newcastle.

Derek Sneddon was missing after his heavy fall at Sheffield, and Daniele Tessari has problems after his heat 13 fall, but the real disaster came in heat 6.

It started well with George Stancl and Andrew Tully making the start, Stancl on board Wethers? bike, but George lifted leaving the second bend and took himself and Andrew into the fence.

It took a long time to clear the debris of men and machines, and that was the end of a disastrous night for George Stancl. He had already blown two motors, one in the pits and one when leading heat 1. No wonder he asked ?Why me??

It seemed that Andrew Tully would be ruled out also, but mercifully he was able to carry on. In fact he performed brilliantly.

Going back to the start, we were on a 4-2 in heat 1 until Stancl ground to a halt. Jonas Raun had dropped out right at the start, Christian Henry took the gifted win, and Kalle Katajisto fell on the last bend before pushing home for second as Stancl pushed for a lap and a point.

Sean Stoddart fell in heat 2, which Matthew Wethers won easily. Daniele Tessari was tentative and lost out to Sam Dore for second.

No problem for guest Jason Lyons in heat 3, stopped near the end when Katajisto fell again.

Stoddart showed his improvement by passing Wethers to win a shared heat 4, and Lyons outgated Henry but had to work hard to win heat 5.

Then came heat 6. A horrible moment, and eventually a 2-4 with Wilkinson winning from Tully. Dore was allowed in the rerun even though he was clearly not under power at the stoppage. The scores were now level and we were down to 5 men plus our no. 8.

Henry took the rider replacement and won heat 7 even though Wethers was right on his tail. Diamonds now led.

However Monarchs weren?t finished and we had Matthew and Andrew battling to a heat 8 5-1 over Stoddart and Raun, who fell.

Lyons was the rock we were relying on, and his heat 9 win was backed by a point from the back for Kalle. 4 up, could we keep it going?

Wilkinson fell and dislodged the boards in heat 10, but the race was allowed to continue. We were giving Gary Beaton a run but he misjudged the situation and came off the track when there was a point to be had. Ross Brady led but Andrew Tully made up a huge amount of ground to pass him for a great win. A 3-2 gave us a 5-point lead.

Heat 11 was a 2-4, Mathew just losing out to Henry, and Daniele riding much harder to finish right on Raun?s back wheel.

Lyons won heat 12, with Tully taking third ahead of Brady, and that restored our 5-point lead with three heats left.

Tessari took the Stancl place in heat 13, and he made a determined start, pushing his way into second although baulking Wethers on the first turn. On the pits bend, though, the Italian fell, and he was clearly struggling to get off the tack.

Referee Holt again let it run, and Wethers did well to come under Wilkinson to take second.

Heat 14 was where we ran out of steam. Brady and Stoddart made the start and there was nothing Tully and Katajisto could do about it. That meant our lead had gone and we went into heat 15 a point down.

Newcastle won the toss, and took 2 and 4. Henry just beat Lyons to the first turn and made no mistake to clinch the win, with Matthew falling as he tried to catch Wilkinson.

Diamonds took their chance, but Edinburgh?s luck has been truly sickening over the past few days. With so many knocks and machine problems, it may be a while before things turn.

Edinburgh Monarchs v Newcastle Diamonds

Tonight is the team's third match on the trot as Newcastle come to Armadale for the return fixture following on from last Sunday's Premier League match at Brough Park.

We almost pulled off our second league win of the season down at Newcastle last Sunday losing out in a last heat decider to go down by 46-44. This means that we have only to pull two points back in the battle for the bonus point. We have faced more onerous tasks than that this season and succeeded.

It would be dangerous, though, to treat this match as a foregone conclusion although it is tempting to do so after last Sunday. Newcastle throughout our history have proved difficult for us to beat at home and there are certain factors which should cause us to be wary.

The make-up of the Diamonds' team is still not known for certain. Josef Franc is listed as a possible starter but with the sad death of his father he returned home and may not be present for this match. Our condolences go to Pepe and his family on their sad loss. If he does not take his place in the Diamonds' side it will be a severe blow to their hopes because they will have to use Rider Replacement to cover his rides. At least all of the team are eligible to take an R/R ride but, while Christian Henry and Carl Wilkinson can fill two of the gaps in the programme satisfactorily, the others are unlilkely to match Pepe's scoring.

The Diamonds are one of the league's teams with three genuine heatleaders - Christian Henry, Josef Franc and Carl Wilkinson - and while they can threaten our top men the back up is less impressive. Ross Brady is going through a terrible patch at the moment and looked a pale shadow of the rider he used to be last Sunday. We all know how dangerous his fast gating can make him but he is just not making his starts count at the moment. Jonas Raun is another whose early season form seems to have deserted him while the Diamonds are likely to track a Conference League guest at reserve - probably Sam Dore. Sean Stoddart will no doubt be determined to come back and haunt us again and certainly his gating now is far better than it ever was for us. Overall there does not seem to be enough firepower for them to win this match.

We have concerns too though. We don't know yet whether Derek Sneddon's injuries sustained at Sheffield last night will be serious enough to keep him sidelined. If so, we will have to use Rider Replacement with only Matthew, Kalle, Andrew and Daniele able to take one of the rides. We will be without Kai Laukkanen on Grand Prix duty but we have Jason Lyons guesting in his place so seem to be well covered on this occasion judging by Jason's performance for Birmingham a couple of weeks ago.

Another unknown is whether Daniele will be able to take his place at reserve. If he is, it may take him some time to get back into the groove after such a long layoff and this could leave us vulnerable at the bottom end of the team. Andrew on the other hand looks as though he may well relish being back at reserve with excellent scores away from home at the number 7 position at both Newcastle and Sheffield.

After registering his first win ever in British speedway last night at Sheffield (and in brilliant style too!) Kalle Katajisto's confidence must surely be sky high and tonight's meeting offers him an excellent opportunity to build on that.

We can expect big scores from George and Matthew to see us home, hopefully with a bit to spare, and it will be a huge disappointment if we fail to take all three points from this match.

Speedway's a funny game though and you can never be sure. Here's hoping it's a good match without any injuries. May the better team win (provided it's us!).