Great point at Owlerton

REPORT Thursday 18th August 2016, 10:03pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The weakened Border Roofing Monarchs picked up a very good point in a 43-47 defeat at Sheffield tonight, and they were not far off doing even better.

Going into the final heat four points down, Sam Masters and Erik Riss held a 5-1 for a time before the powerful home riders Simon Stead and Jason Garrity barged through to share the heat.

John Campbell said "After last night's most dreadful performance at Somerset it's nice to have a bit of spirit about it, and come very close to getting more than just a point out of it. A much, much improved performance and we probably didn't miss Ryan too much on this occasion as we got paid 9 from his rides.

"Erik's upset because he was holding the position to draw the match, but Stead and particularly Garrity were very, very good tonight. As soon as Stead pushed Erik over, Garrity was through like a rocket.

"We've obviously got to be very pleased because we were so bad last night and we came here to race against a strong team without one of our better riders.

"Miracle stuff from Dan again, he just gets better and better. Everybody did something. Max actually looked very good in heat 2 and he didn't look bad thereafter, but you can't put him out because Dan is so good.

"I probably should have had Dan in heat 11 as well but Mark had done well in his previous rides and I hoped he'd keep it going."

Scores had been tight in the early stages until a Sheffield 5-1 in heat 6 gave them the advantage. We were six down at heat 11 but gained a 4-2 in heat 12 with Dan Bewley winning from Howarth.

A 5-1 loss in heat 13 was reversed brilliantly by Erik and Dan in heat 14, before that exciting final race.

Full Result Details