Off to Plymouth we go

The Border Roofing Monarchs gave themselves a good chance of progressing in the KO Cup for this season by taking a 54-36 advantage from the first leg against Plymouth – after a pretty poor start!

Our top four dropped very few points, all of them to Plymouth’s guest Steve Worrall who beat Sam and Erik in heat 1, Ryan in heats 11 and 15 and Kevin also in the last heat. Other than that, the visitors could not really get to grips with the home stars and even Jack Holder did less well than last year.

We needed points from the lower end of the team and to some extent we got them. Not in heat 2 though! Having shared heat 1 behind the fast-gating Worrall, we watched one of our worst-ever heat two’s as first Dan Bewley toppled over after a slow start, then Max Clegg feebly trailed home behind the pairing of Stefan Nielsen and Ellis Perks.

As if annoyed with himself, Max then got truly stuck in in a way we haven’t seen for a few weeks, catching Jack Holder off the last corner in heat 7, taking a good point from Simota in heat 11 and romping away with heat 14. That should be the corner turned for Max.

Dan Bewley had an important paid win in heat 4 which got a great response from the fans. Our 16 year old will certainly get better and better.

For Jye Etheridge, it could have been a good night – last in heat 3, a good point in heat 5, he was on schedule for a paid win in heat 9 until he came off when well clear of the opposition. He could have done without that, and he did nothing in heat 14, so a single point was a disappointing outcome.

No great need to talk about the top four, they all did their job. Kevin Wolbert had probably the race of the night when he beat Holder on the final corner of heat 12, though the young Aussie also had an interesting tussle with Masters and Riss in heat 10 before coming off.

It was the riders who decided to put out the last heat pair without Sam, but there you go – sometimes management would do things differently!

We’ll see tomorrow if the last heat win by Steve Worrall was significant or not.

Better The Devil You Know?

After the morale boosting and hard fought victory against Glasgow last week it’s onto Knockout Cup duty this week as we face the Plymouth ‘Newton Abbot Races’ Devils.

The Knockout Cup was the only full team competition we failed to retain last year as we were beaten finalists to the Somerset Rebels and we will look to build a good lead against the Devonshire team with the return leg due to take place at the St Boniface Arena on Saturday night. So the two teams geographically furthest away from each other are drawn against each other and decide to race the match over 2 nights. I hope the riders have mattresses in their vans!

It should be mentioned that we can be glad to see the Devils at all this year after they closed their doors after their season opening invitational citing poor crowds as the reason. It looked likely that this would remain the case but thankfully the Devils were saved and we will welcome all involved to the Dale on Friday.

Plymouth started the season slowly losing all of their first 4 matches. They have picked up in the last couple of weeks though and have recorded victories in their last 2 matches both at home against Sheffield and Peterborough respectively. The main issue with the Devils had been a lack of a top end scorer with number 1 Charlie Gjedde returning to British Speedway after 2 years only hitting double figures once (and that was aided by a tactical ride). Gjedde has now decided that he cannot make a good go of his return and has removed himself from the Plymouth team. This allows the Devils a guest facility for the next few weeks.

Utilising that guest facility and no doubt strengthening the Devils this week riding at number 1 is Stevie Worrall. Stevie is of course no stranger to the Monarchs having been a pivotal part of our historic 2014 season. Stevie has now joined the list of the likes of James Grieves and Aaron Summers in becoming the guest of choice for teams visiting the Dale and our top men will know what is in store from the smooth fast starting St Helens born star.

Number 2 in the Devils line-up is expected to be Kyle Newman. We await final confirmation on if Kyle has recovered from a recent groin injury to take his place. The young Poole asset has stalled somewhat in the last couple of years and appears to be one the riders that has suffered from a lack of progression due to the Elite League draft system. Kyle regularly reels off double figure scores for the Pirates but is yet to set the Premier League alight and started the season on a sub 7 average. If Kyle is not fit to return then rider replacement will be in place with all bar Stevie Worrall being allowed a ride.

The engine room of the Devils team is made up of two Aussies of differing experience and it has to be said potential. At 3 is young prodigy Jack Holder. Jack is the younger brother of former world champ Chris Holder and is the current Aussie under-21 champ having wrestled the title away from Max Fricke over the winter. Jack was many fans vote as most impressive visitor at Armadale last year and will be looking to carry on his speedway education by building on his performance this year.

Joining Holder in the central positions is Todd Kurtz, Kurtz has been around the British scene for a few years now having spent time with Newport, Coventry and Somerset alongside a previous spell with the Devils. His Armadale record is patchy at best but he can normally be counted on to mix it and can come up with the odd surprise result.

At 5 for the Devonshire men is Czech star Sam Simota. Simota is another who has been around these shores for a while after first being seen here way back in 2005 for Reading. Simota is a frustratingly inconsistent rider both home and away and we have seen some exhilarating stuff from him round the Dale in the past not least at a Scottish Open a few years back but he can also be fairly woeful if not in the mood and his performances will likely have a huge bearing over the two legs this weekend.

Senior reserve for Plymouth is young Danish born Stefan Nielsen. Nielsen is a former back to back British under 19 champ (yeah I know that’s a contradiction to him being Danish born) and is looking to make the next step in the Premier League this year. His early season form has been strong and he will prove more than a handful for the Monarchs reserves this weekend.

Joining Nielsen at reserve at the fast track position is Ellis Perks. Ellis had a brief spell at Scunthorpe last year and is looking to build on that this year. There were many who thought he could be an option to join the Monarchs this year when we were looking for a number 7 and Plymouth had announced they were not to run but with the Devils being resurrected so to speak the teenager was able to take his place.

Looking to send the Devils packing this weekend is our very own Blue and Gold heroes the Border Roofing Monarchs. The home men expect to line up with our full 1-7 as although Belle Vue Colts have a home meeting on Friday it has been agreed that Dan will be in our line-up. What a boost this could be as Dan has been racking up the points in the National League recently with 3 double figure scores to his name including an 18 point max alongside 15 and 11 point returns away from home. Dan has not been the only one starring elsewhere though as it has been a fairly busy week for the Monarch men as although we did not have any matches 4 of our guys have been in action elsewhere. Dan as mentioned earlier has been firing in the points in the National League. One of his matches was against teammate Max Clegg who was paid for 15 points on Monday night. Sam will be delighted with his week having qualified from a tough Grand Prix qualifier at Kings Lynn and been star of the show on Sky for Wolves at Coventry where he racked up a remarkable paid 16. Erik also had a frantic weekend with a long track meeting in Germany last Thursday followed by Armadale last Friday then back to Germany for an individual meeting on Saturday. Erik made a strong start but faded away but it is all good experience for our young German who is impressing everywhere he rides so far this season.

With our defence of the League Cup over and our league defence not truly underway yet we will be looking for a strong performance in the KO Cup over the weekend as we look to regain the trophy we last won in 2014. Every point will be crucial as we look to build as big a lead as possible to take down south on Saturday.