Sheffield Tigers v Edinburgh Monarchs

REPORT Thursday 6th April 2006, 10:00pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

At last we completed a 15-heat match, and reached a 40-point total at one of the toughest away venues in the division.

After watching the first three heats it seemed unlikely we would finish with such a total. Heat 1 was a home 5-1 though Theo came remarkably close to catching Ashworth on the line after making up a lot of ground.

Derek held second for much of heat 2, with Cooper leading, and eventually Benji Compton came through to second only to fall on the final turn. Derek swerved neatly to avoid him but Sean took a tumble.

Our pair trailed well behind in heat 3 and at this point we had gained only gift points. However Rusty sorted that in a remarkable heat 4 in which he fought out a tough duel, not with Andre Compton but with Paul Cooper. Rusty passed the home reserve but then made an error, dropping back to second again. With a win in the bag, Cooper lifted leaving the final turn and crashed, leaving us sitting on a 4-2 over Andre!

Benji Compton was ruled out of the meeting after that heat 2 crash, so Cooper was lined up for 7 rides. The race winning habit continued as Theo rode a beautiful race to lead heat 5 all the way from the hard-charging Legault.

A slow gate for Rusty in heat 6 left him chasing, but once he switched from inside to out he sped round Ben Wilson to grab a second.

Matthew and William pushed Cooper to the back in heat 7, and of course Cooper was quickly out again for heat 8. No TR chance as we were only 8 down.

Theo once again showed his liking for this circuit with an impeccable ride, and with Cooper at the back again we had our second race advantage.

Rusty took our race win tally to four by beating Legault, again having to work hard to subdue the lively Canadian.

Ben Wilson has been on excellent form recently, so William and Matthew did well to keep him pointless in heat 10 - and Matt did it from the back.

Henrik managed to pick up a point in heat 11 by beating Cooper in another shared race, and poor old Paul was last again as heat 12 finished the same way. Last year in this match we led at heat 12, this year we were six down - probably better than expected.

Sheffield are of course especially strong in the closing stages, and they did indeed take 5-1's in heats 13 and 15 - though Andre Compton had to come from the back both times.

In between we finally got a TR chance, sending William out in black-and-white - and he led the heat! He couldn't hold off Legault but we did score a 5-3 advantage with - you guessed it - Paul Cooper at the back.

Theo held second in heat 15 for a bit before feeling the force of a determined Andre overtake. Nevertheless, 40 points at Sheffield was the target set by match previewer Dennis Wallace - and we made it.

Full Result Details