Glasgow Tigers v Edinburgh Monarchs

REPORT Sunday 11th October 2009, 10:00pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

With three guests in their side, all useful riders, Glasgow seemed more solid than usual, but they were no match for the mighty Monarchs in the Scottish Cup second leg.

Our riders looked hungry for points right from the first rise of the tapes, and virtually never gave them a look in. Tigers used 2 TRs but only supplied four race winners, two of these coming after the match was all over.

The cup was clinched by heat 5 and our 17th away win of the current era at Ashfield was in the bag by heat 10. It might have been rubbing it in a bit when Ryan said ?It was like taking candy from a baby? on the parade truck, but it wasn?t far wrong as the Tigers looked so demoralised throughout.

In truth the racing was quite processional, mainly because our riders generally got the better of the first bend action and rarely allowed Tigers a chance to come back.

Ryan set the scene by winning from the tapes in heat 1. Steve Johnston was in fairly close contention though he in turn came under late pressure from the Raj.

Which Aaron Summers would turn up? Well after about one bend we knew, as he flew clear down the back straight to share the reserves? heat.

There was a good early tussle in heat 3 but it was Tully who showed greater determination into the first turn of lap two to get ahead of Lawson.

Four ahead, so far so good. It got even better in heat 4, with Aaron again racing ahead and a brilliant cutback from Rajkowski taking him past Dicken for a 5-1.

Amazingly the Raj was involved again as he backed up Fisher for another 5-1 in heat 6 over William Lawson, and this was getting ridiculous.

Tigers used Steve Johnston as a TR in heat 6, but Andrew Tully again rode well to head him home and restrict Tigers to a 5-3.

Tigers finally got a race win in heat 7 through Grajczonek. He had little to spare over Tully and Wethers but Andrew just couldn?t quite squeeze through.

We were ten up, but showed our mastery with three successive 5-1s! Summers won his third successive race in heat 8, and again the Raj was brilliant with an overtake of Derek Sneddon.

That brought out William Lawson as a TR, but William wasn?t matching the hunger of our riders and he was beaten to the turn by Wethers and Summers who scored 5 again.

Then it was Wethers and Tully again from Sneddon in heat 10, with Johno at the back. We were an incredible 42-20 ahead.

Grajczonek then managed another win, pressed initially by Rajkowski who finished with an amazing piece of fence scraping but managed to avoid falling off.

This was a batter spell for Tigers as Lawson beat Tully in heat 12. In fact they were on a 5-1 till Tully passed Dicken, who fell back behond Bekker but regained third place. Finally Byron battled back into third, but Dicken fell and the South African was judged guilty ? a dodgy decision.

Mitchell Davey was a shock winner of heat 14 showing what he can do on the odd occasion he makes the gate. Matthew unluckily stopped on the last lap which allowed Jason King a gift point, his only one of a miserable night for him.

We were a mere 18 ahead now but stretched that to 22 as Ryan and Aaron took an easy 5-1 in the last heat. And third placed William Lawson is one of ours too.

Full Result Details