ENCOURAGING SIGNS AT SHEFFIELD

NEWS Thursday 2nd April 2009, 3:24am

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

It was a night of both frustration and encouragement as we went down 50-39 at Owlerton in our first Premier Trophy tie.

That score looks fairly good by our usual standards at Sheffield, but in all honest it could have been a lot better ? it could even have been a win!

The Yorkshire team seem to be less formidable than usual on their home track, and we scored 2 5-1s in the first three heats to lead by 6 points. Regrettably we once again hit a catalogue of bike problems and misfortunes which affected our challenge.

The only one who sailed through was Thomas, who dropped just two points and included a superb overtake of Ashworth round the outside in heat 10. This was the real THJ for probably the first time this season.

Andrew Tully won two heats, his first and last, in considerable style, but in heat 7 had to jump off his machine smartly as it burst into flames!

Ryan Fisher won two heats, but had to change bikes, rode Matthew's for one heat and finished up looking slow in his last couple of rides.

Aaron Summers started with a fine paid win but ran into machine problems after that, and finished up falling in heat 11 when there were only 3 riders on track, but failing to realise there was a point to be picked up.

And Matthew, who has had a difficult start to the season, fell while second in heat 4, then pulled out while leading heat 6, before taking 3 points from his final two rides.

Michal Rajkowski took 7 from his first 3 rides before fading with three last places. And finally there is Sean, who scored only 1 but was not far off the pace on this occasion.

So with quite a few problems our 6 point lead became an 11-point deficit and no PT points were gained. It could have been better, but it was an improvement on both King's Lynn and Glasgow ? once the gremlins go away we should be competitive everywhere.

Tonight (Friday) the teams meet at Armadale.