24 points to make up

REPORT Wednesday 16th September 2026, 10:02pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Monarchs gave it all they had at Poole in the first leg of the Championship Playoff semi-final, but could not prevent the Poole Pirates taking a 57-33 lead to bring up to Armadale.

Team manager John Campbell before setting off on the long trip home was keen to praise the efforts of his team. He said "I'm very proud of what the team did. It's very hard for visitors to find the setup with the way the track is here. Our riders were so determined, and they've still got that determination. Of course it will take a superhuman effort on Friday, but their heads are not down and they believe they can still do something. You never know."

Frustratingly often, Monarchs' riders gated well only to find that the home men found the lines inside or out from the second turn to squeeze past down the back straight. Both Kye Thomson in heat 1 and Mitch Cluff in heat 2 suffered in that way after gating well and that put the home side 10-2 ahead at that early stage.

Monarchs fought back with three consecutive race winners. Paco Castagna led the way in heat 3 and was joined by Justin Sedgmen who passed Cooper Rushen to record a 5-1.

Dan Thompson won heat 4 and Kye Thomson heat 5, and at 17-13 we were pretty happy even though we had four last places out of 5. Last places were a bit of a problem all night.

The next two heats were both home 4-2s but we should have reversed one of these in heat 8 with Mitch Cluff leading for almost 3 laps in heat 8 – until he came down on the freshly watered third bend under pressure from Newman.

Dan took his second win in heat 9 and our middle pair shared heat 10 behind Lawson. A 10 point deficit at that point was still not bad, if we could match the Pirates in the closing stages.

However it was not to be. We were often close to gaining good positions in these closing heats, but four of the last five races wound up as home 5-1s. Heat 14 would have been a 4-2 but Lightcap packed up in front and we took the 4-2.

Captain Paco had put everything into it on and off the track and at least he was voted Enchanted Rider of the Night. So we can ask him what the contents of the bag are! Roll on Friday.

Full Result Details