Edinburgh Monarchs v Newcastle Diamonds

REPORT Friday 1st July 2011, 10:00pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

A warm sunny evening of the kind too rarely seen in these parts allowed the fans to enjoy a hard-fought encounter between these two old rivals.

Newcastle took a 5-1 in heat 1 after Kevin Wolbert had come down on the outside of the first turn, and it wasn?t until heat 8 that Edinburgh got their noses in front.

The 5-1 gained in that heat signaled the return to pre-injury form by Kyle Howarth. His scoring from reserve takes a bit of the pressure off the top five who were being forced into the situation that they could not afford a single mistake.

Over the second half of the match Monarchs gradually forged ahead, not allowing Newcastle any further heat advantages. Nevertheless the Diamonds put up a good show overall with Claes Nedermark very impressive on his Armadale debut.

Stuart Robson and James Grieves were as good as expected but their team was slightly unbalanced by Jason King who was out of touch.

The home side had no real problems even though the

big hitters in the opening pair didn?t score quite as well as usual. There were plenty of points throughout the side with Kalle Katajisto winning three heats and Craig Cook in sparkling form in spite of a strapped up wrist.

Howarth can be well pleased with his return, and new boy Tim Webster made a steady start to his Monarchs? career.

Two of the best heats featured the fast starting Grieves. He was cleverly overhauled by Andrew Tully in heat 5, and more forcefully passed by Wolbert who inadvertantly lifted and almost pushed his opponent into the fence in heat 13.

Full Result Details