Runners-Up in the Pairs

REPORT Friday 8th July 2016, 9:07pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Border Roofing Monarchs (Sam Masters and Ryan Fisher) performed brilliantly at Somerset tonight to come second in the Premier Pairs, behind the Rebels themselves – best of the visiting teams.

Sam and Ryan provided many of the thrills in the meeting, in which rather as predicted there were some very strong pairs and some not very strong ones, with a number of the top PL men missing for various reasons.

Team manager Alex Harkess said “Our boys did very well indeed and have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of losing to Somerset. We really needed to win the toss for the final because gates 1 and 3 were a lot better, but we lost it.

“But I certainly have no quarrels with Somerset winning they looked the strongest all night. Our semi-final was classic pairs racing and it was good to pip Glasgow in that.

“Sam and Ryan worked hard for each other all night and I was very happy with them. It was a good night”

Our trackside reporter Graham Muncie described the Edinburgh heats for us.

“Heat 2 against Sheffield. We are off 2/4 Sam down coming down out of bend 2. Stead gated. Everyone else going for the same inside line as its a dustbowl. Howarth gave Fish a wee nudge and he went into Sam. Sam excluded.

“Rerun Fish gates stopped for unsatisfactory start. Hard to tell from the back straight if he jumped it or not. Rerun 2 Stead traps Fish hunts him down and blasts round him out of the bend 2 lap 3 as he gives Daelyn (who is on the 2nd bend) a wave. Frighteningly good.

“Heat 6 coming up against Plymouth after extensive track watering (well needed dust was ridiculous). Sam gate 1 Fish 3. Sam gates Fish gets into 2nd out of second bend. Goes round Sam bend 4 and that's that 7-2.

“Heat 12 vs Ipswich Sam gate 3 Fish gate 1 Fish gates then Covatti and Sam pass and repass so many times I lost count. Fish in front trying to peg Covatti to allow Sam through. Sam dived inside Covatti bend 3 lap 4 Covatti cuts back and gets him back on the line 6-3 monarchs. Fish, Covatti, Sam. Race of the night if not the season.

“Heat 18 against Rye Fish off gate 2 Sam gate 4. Robbo gates track is getting slick. Sam on his tail for a couple laps dives under him bend 1 lap 3 Robbo back under Sam goes round him bend 4 lap 3 Fish holding tight inside line in 3rd. 6-3 Monarchs."

That gave us an excellent 23 points but it looked as though Sheffield would pip us due to the 5-4 they got against us in heat 2. However Plymouth did us a favour by getting a 6-3 against the Yorkshire Tigers which meant that we had won the group by 2 points.

EDINBURGH 23, SHEFFIELD 21, PLYMOUTH 20, IPSWICH 15, RYE HOUSE 11.

In the other group Somerset were dominant with 26, beaten only when Mateju Kus headed them in heat 3. Glasgow always looked set to be the other qualifiers though in the end they just scraped in with a score made up of 7, 2, 7, 2.

SOMERSET 26, GLASGOW 18, WORKINGTON 17, PETERBOROUGH 15, NEWCASTLE 14

Somerset beat Sheffield 7-2 in the first semi-final, then it’s back to Graham Muncie for the second semi and the final.

“Semi 2 Sam gate 1 Fish 3 Lawson 2 Summers 4. What can I say. Masters gates Fisher misses it by a mile. Summers gets round Sam and goes. Sam spends 3 laps slowing down and clamping Lawson down, bend 3 lap 4 Fish dives under Lawson almost runs into Sam but somehow they come out with the 4-5 all I can say is buy the DVD.

“I might be biased but we have been involved in the top 4 heats of the night in my opinion.

“Final Masters gate 4 Fish gate 2 Tungate gate 1 Graj gate 3, Rebels gate and that's that 7-2. Home track but they were the best from start to finish."