12 point Monarchs win with Shielfield to come

The Stellar Monarchs would be happy enough to take a 12-point victory over Berwick tonight in a meeting which featured some very good racing. With Justin Sedgmen missing the four remaining home non-reserves knuckled down and scored well with all in double figures, but the Bandits did fight back towards the end to give them some thoughts of taking the aggregate bonus.

Monarchs' captain Paco Castagna was upbeat following the victory. He said "It was a good win, though we wanted to win by more. We are all happy but we did want more points. Heat 14 was my fault for missing the start.

"I think we're strong for tomorrow, we're going for a win there as well, that is the mindset. We have a good guest in Leon Flint you can't do better than that at Berwick."

Bandits were largely well served only by Lewis Kerr at no. 1 with 15 and guest reserve Joe Thompson with 10+1, outstanding in their respective roles. Thompson defeated the home senior reserve Coles five times in five clashes, a strong contribution for his team.

Ben Barker's two point tally guesting for Rory Schlein however was a big disappointment. They also had race wins from Danyon Hume and Drew Kemp but neither was consistent.

The visitors started well with Kerr winning heat 1 (even though Kye Thomson at one point had edged to the front), followed by a 4-2 in heat 2 after Max James fell.

Both Monarchs Fredriksen and Castagna passed Jye Etheridge in heat 3 for a 5-1 to give Monarchs a lead they never lost. Barker's first two rides were both home 5-1s so Monarchs led 22-14 after 6 races.

Danyon Hume only scored in one heat but that was a win in heat 8, a narrow victory over Kye Thomson, and with Joe Thompson passing Coles Berwick had pulled back to a 6-point deficit with a chance to bring Kerr into heat 9. This proved to be a turning point in the match, because a great ride by Castagna and Fredriksen resulted in a home 5-1. It was an especially good tactical ride by Fredriksen.

Good work again by Kye Thomson in heat 10 brought another 5-1, with Kemp falling as Thomson came under him.

There was no way back for the Bandits, though they did take a heat 13 4-2 and a heat 14 5-1 to reduce the deficit. Monarchs regained another 2 points in heat 15, one of the night's best heats with Pickering leading all the way and Thomson passing Kemp and almost catching Kerr on the line as well.

On to Shielfield tomorrow night.

Big weekend For Monarchs

Last week, the Stellar Monarchs returned impressively to winning ways with the comprehensive 55-35 victory over Workington Comets at Armadale.

Unfortunately for the Cumbrian outfit, their trip north was one to forget. Circumstances disarmed them from the outset with two of their septet, Claus Vissing and Celina Liebmann, seeing their flights cancelled due to the weekend's IT outage that affected millions globally. Even speedway riders couldn't escape it.

The eleventh hour nature of the duo's no-show put Comets' promoter Steve Lawson in an impossible position leaving him ultimately to rely on untried youngsters - Laylan Richardson and Monarchs Academy rider Mason Watson - to fill the void.

Add to the all-round catastrophe Aussie Tate Zische's continued absence recovering from his recent horror crash, and there is just no understating how disadvantaged Workington we're ahead of Friday's clash.

Not that Edinburgh got off lightly in the misfortune stakes either. Things had started swimmingly with two 5-1s in the opening three heats but all that changed dramatically in Justin Sedgmen's first race of the night.

The crash that initially halted Heat 4 saw all four riders hit the shale but, while three of them were able to shake themselves down in readiness for the rerun, Sedgy's next mode of transport was an ambulance trip to hospital as a concussion precaution. The Monarchs' No.5's involvement in the meeting was over with injured rider replacement quickly deployed.

It took some strong performances throughout the side, but victory on the night was never really in any doubt.

Indeed, Max James's last place finish in Heat 7 was the sole occasion all evening where red or blue helmet colour failed to score.

Even with Sedgy's retirement, Workington's own problems must have offered their hosts a glimmer of renewed hope that the aggregate bonus point, previously considered somewhat forlorn after the massive 32-point deficit legacy from the previous fixture between the sides at Northside in May, might just be achievable after all

And it might well have been but for the all-but faultless display of Armadale-savvy from Comets' main man, Craig Cook whose 17-point haul from six rides was yet another reminder of just how immaculate he can be round a track he owns as emphatically as anyone.

In store for the Stellar Monarchs this weekend is an intriguing home and away double header against the Jewson Berwick Bandits.

Neither team has enjoyed the type of season they had hoped for and, as a biting consequence, both currently occupy the bottom two spots in the Championship table.

Yet, they are each within just five points of the play-off zone which, with five meetings still to run apiece, lends the upcoming back-to-back fixtures (Armadale on Friday, Shielfield Park 24 hours later) even more significance.

The Bandits double header aside, Edinburgh still have another with Glasgow and a final home meeting with Poole (who have only a ten-point cushion from the earlier clash at Wimborne Road in the bank) to play out so, in essence, with 13 points remaining up for grabs, the season is anything but over.

A precautionary concussion ruling means that Justin Sedgmen will sit out both dates with Berwick. Rider replacement will be called into action on Friday while Glasgow's Leon Flint, a man who knows the Berwick circuit like the back of his hand, will guest in the away leg.

For the Bandits, on both evenings, Ben Barker and Joe Thomson come in for Rory Schlein and Bastian Borke respectively."