Edinburgh Monarchs v Sheffield Tigers

PREVIEW Friday 2nd June 2006, 12:00pm

by Dennis Wallace

  Edinburgh Monarchs

After home fixtures in the Knock-out Cup and Premier League, it's back to the Premier Trophy with this match against Sheffield. To maintain our wafer thin chance of qualifying we have to beat the Tigers by more than 12 points to take the bonus point following our 52-40 defeat at Owlerton.

This was well within the team's grasp until William Lawson's unfortunate accident on Monday night. The added strain of Rider Replacement placed on Theo Pijper, Matthew Wethers and both reserves will make overall success more difficult yet it can still be done.

Sheffield, too, will be using Rider Replacement for Ben Wilson who is on standby duty at the Grand Prix in Cardiff on Saturday night as one of the meeting reserves. Wilson's Armadale appearances in the past have not been notable so his loss is unlikely to have anything like the effect of the loss of William to Edinburgh.

Sheffield have dominated so heavily at home that they look virtually certain to win all seven bonus points up for grabs to add to their away victory at Redcar. They will take the second qualifying spot in the section if they win this match or their outstanding home tie against Stoke.

Away from home Sheffield have had limited success but the matches they have lost have been by small margins. The number one pairing of Ricky Ashworth and Ben Wilson has been their best. With Wilson absent it will be interesting to see how they fare. Ashworth is a very fast gater and, as such, is always a threat so we can't allow him to dominate the races in which he features.

The middle pairing is Emiliano Sanchez and Kyle Legault. Sanchez has sometimes looked impressive round Armadale but at other times not. It depends which Sanchez turns up. Kyle Legault has made enormous strides from last year where he spent most of the season at reserve. He can't yet replicate his Sheffield scoring on the away tracks but is still a force to be reckoned with.

The bottom end of the team is headed by Andre Compton who rode at Armadale for Newport as a guest for Craig Watson recently. On that occasion he once again blew hot and cold and that is a likely scenario for Friday's match too. The reserve pairing of Benji Compton and Paul Cooper are unlikely to score heavily. We well remember Paul Cooper's efforts last year when we were in danger of running out of fence panels such was his difficulty in getting round the track. Here's hoping he takes a more controlled approach this time.

There doesn't seem to be much between the teams this time particularly with Rider Replacement operating for both sides more to Sheffield's advantage than ours. When Theo is on top form he is close to unbeatable round Armadale and Rusty now seems to be making much better starts to give us a stronger spearhead. Henrik threatens to make the breakthrough while we always get 100% effort from Matthew. Derek at reserve is a real trump card for the team and he is again likely to make a major contribution to the total. Sean has turned in some mixed performances recently. On his day we know what he is capable of - but he has had some dire meetings too. If he is on song it will make a huge difference to the team and should bring the bonus point into contention.

It should be a fascinating match. There are so many imponderables that it is a difficult one to call. It's all or nothing for us though. Nothing less than a 12+ points win will have any real meaning. A determined performance could do the trick?

Full Result Details