SENSATIONAL FOUR POINTS AT RYE

REPORT Saturday 8th August 2015, 9:49pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Once again the Border Roofing Monarchs showed their incredible resilience to bounce back from last night's disappointment and not just win, but dominate this match with a 52-40 win.

This takes us back to the top of the league though chances are it will be a brief stay this time. However we can only marvel at this performance by the team who were missing both Sam Masters (prominent in the pits as usual) and Erik Riss.

John Campbell had a big grin at the end and said "It was a victory for team spirit, they were just tremendous."

It was a highly eventful match, with tapes exclusions, heats stopped and some very good racing - including another of Craig Cook's party pieces, taking a paid win off 15 metres.

We started with a tape touch from Sedgmen, who reacted to movement alongside him. Branford came in, Kennett gated in the rerun but Cook cut back perfectly to drive inside him at the third bend. Down went Kennett, apparently on his own, and the ref agreed. We took a 4-2 in the rerun.

Max Clegg rode a great race to win heat 2, fighting off an early challenge from Danny Maassen.

Heat 3 was a disappointment, a comfortable 5-1 to the Rockets over Kevin Wolbert. Little did we know at that point that it was to be one of only three race winners for the Rockets.

Cook and Kennett were the rider replacements in heat four, getting the big guns out early, and once again a great Cook cutback settled the result. This time Rob Branford took the third and we levelled the scores.

Craig was not allowed a lot of time between races, and he failed to beat the two minutes for heat 5. Naturally he went off 15 metres and with Sedgy making the start, we knew there was a chance of something special.

Craig was inside Kasper Lykke early, and chasing Mellgren. He tried wide sweeps on the pits turn but the Swede was blocking that, and Craig lifted dramatically on the third lap. However he kept the pressure up, drove wide into the final bend and turned back to grab second on the line - tremendous.

In heat 6 we suffered a double tapes exclusion, firstly Clegg and then Branford, the latter warned for a second time following an earlier occurrence, which apparently means outright exclusion these days.

So Kevin was on his own and we lost a 4-2 with Kennett winning.

Kevin had had his sight of the track now and stormed off to win heat 7. Max Clegg got a point after Bowen had been excluded for spectacularly tumbling off the back, his bike just missing Max.

Sedgy too had the bit between his teeth and in a rerun race he brilliantly took Aspegren from the back in heat 8, another 4-2. Nothing was guaranteed yet but we were 6 up with all of our top three winning races and the others chipping in.

Sedgy was rider replacement for heat 9 and took another win in spite of a spirited challenge from Lykke, and a few yards further back Clegg put in a strong challenge on Mellgren but just missed out.

The flying Wolbert beat Kennett in heat 10 and even the top Rocket was starting to look dispirited as he faced our heat leader onslaught.

This was the interval and we were 33-27 ahead. A grading and light watering followed, then we saw the best of our opening pair again with Sedgy roaring to the front and Cookie backing up for a comfortable 5-1 over Lykke and Bowen.

This allowed Mellgren to take a TR but it made no difference, Kevin was unstoppable now. He won easily with some spectacular wide riding, with Max taking another point in a 4-4 drawn heat.

We needed to share heat 13 to ensure the win and we put Liam Carr into the race to give the youngster his third race. Not only did Craig win the heat but Liam took an excellent steady third over Aspegren.

We had our reserves out in heat 14 and Rob Branford might have aken a second had he not spun off at the start of lap three.

So we needed to share the final race to ensure 4 points, but we needn't have worried as we enjoyed another perfect Sedgmen/Cook combination ride for a 5-1, the third of the night for our best-ever pairing.

Full Result Details