Ipswich Witches v Edinburgh Monarchs

Our job at Foxhall Heath was to avoid losing by as much as 22 points, so even with Craig Cook pulling out due to a virus, we had every reason to be confident.

Ryan Fisher came in to guest, and his recent form was good. It’s probably not a good thing to have a low-level target because you tend to perform below your best, and that was the case here.

However there was never any real pressure because we did the important bit, which was getting off to a good start.

Fisher and Sedgmen gated well in heat 1 but King was soon at the front after Justin lifted down the back straight. Max Clegg did well in heat 2 to pass Stefan Nielsen and indeed Max rode the track well all night.

Kevin Wolbert won heat 3 with Erik Riss well tailed off, but with Sam Masters beating Covatti and Rob Branford third ahead of Morris, we levelled at heat 4 and Ipswich must have felt by then that they had no chance.

In fact the Witches threw away points over the next two races, Manzares stopping while leading heat 5 (5-1 to us) and Heeps falling while on a 5-1 with King in Heat 6, so we were four up at that stage.

Covatti passed Wolbert impressively in heat 7 and we lost a bad 5-1 in heat 8 with Sedgmen at the back. Masters steadied the ship with a fast gate and a win in heat 9.

Wolbert and Fisher had second places in the next two races, then a heat 12 4-2 made our passage to the Final certain, even though we slumped 14-4 over the last three races. Job done, though not with much style.