Glasgow Tigers v Edinburgh Monarchs

REPORT Sunday 3rd September 2006, 10:00pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

After another eventful and slightly less than satisfying day, a good fight by the Scotwaste Monarchs ended with our second five-point Ashfield loss of the season.

The absence of Danny Bird changed everyone's outlook on the match, and the dodgy weather prior to and during the event also had an effect.

In fact, rider replacement in Bird's first three rides scored paid 9 and so he couldn't have done any better up that point. Even so we snatched an 8-point lead by heat 5!

Robert Ksiezak won heats 1 and 2, both shared, and it was obvious he would be a key man.

Henrik bounced his way in front in heat 3 with Matthew backing him up, and Glasgow's middle pair looking distinctly uncomfortable.

Shane Parker missed the start in heat 4 as Derek Sneddon raced to the front on the heavy surface, and all Parker could manage was to push the spluttering William Lawson to the back.

We doubled our lead to 8 points in heat 5, as Daniele squeezed though to the front and Theo came round the outside to join him. This was getting serious!

Tigers don't take these things lying down - they seek to move the goalposts. After heat 5 referee Bates was called down for a track inspection, along with some tale about not wanting to run heat 6 with the match in doubt as fans would not be entitles to free readmission (in fact the home promotion could quite easily still have permitted this).

A more believable reason was that Parker didn't fancy doing a TS ride on such a heavy track - and the surface was duly scraped with the referee's approval..

Ksiezak gated in the rerun and William Lawson wasn't able to do much to prevent the 1-8. Most of the hard work was undone, and the rest of it disappeared in heat 7 as Henrik came down on the first corner and suffered a questionable exclusion.

The rerun was a 1-5 and we were three down. Heat 8 was shared with McAllan in difficulties and Ksiezak staying unbeaten from 4 rides.

William Lawson suddenly made a start, so unusual these days, and he looked tremendous as he won heat 9. Heat 10 should also have been shared but Henrik was looking very uncomfortable now, his foot injury from Saturday night having been aggravated, and he eventually fell.

We finally relegated Ksiezak to the back in heat 11, Parker winning a fine race from the back against Pijper, and then Matthew and Derek took a 5-1 in the rerun heat 12. Cockle had been doing well in the first staging till Dicken fell.

So we were back to one point down with three heats left - and no Bird of course. That helped us to share heat 13, but the killer came in heat 14 when we realised Henrik would not be riding.

Another fine ride from Derek brought him his third race win, but Sean was tailed off. So we went into heat 15 one point down.

The machine examiner spotted a cutout problem with Derek's machine just before he was due to go out, and thereby removed any lingering doubt that Tigers would win. In fact we lost a 5-1.

Had Henrik been fit, and the track regarding delayed for one more heat, this could well have had a different outcome.

Full Result Details