Speedway: Monarchs back up and running against Bears

Published on Friday 30 April 2010 10:40

AFTER losing at home to Glasgow Tigers last week, Edinburgh Scotwaste Monarchs found the perfect antidote to that shock setback by winning their opening Premier League speedway match of the season away at Redcar Bears.

In what was a true tale of the unexpected, Monarchs defeated the Bears 46-44 to get their campaign off to a flying start.

On a high having won at Newport Wasps on Sunday, Redcar will deem this reverse a big blow, even although they have lost five of their six home meetings so far this year.

One of their top stars, Thomas Suchanek, hardly scored a point in those encounters yet he picked up 12 on this occasion and this underlines just how good a victory this was for a Monarchs side who came under close scrutiny after the Glasgow collapse.

While doubts still persist over the Monarchs line-up, co- promoter John Campbell hailed the triumph and hopes it signals better things to come.

He said: "Everybody scored, some maybe didn't get as many points as they could have done, but they all showed they are capable of scoring.

"I'm sure nobody was overjoyed by what happened against Glasgow and the whole team wished to do better, and they did. I'm so pleased with the result and hope this will be a launchpad for us, and everybody will start scoring as they should be, and then we'll see who can stop us then." Ryan Fisher was the man who engineered Monarchs' win. The Californian was in imperious form and stormed to a terrific 15-point maximum.

His fifth outing was textbook Fisher as roared round the outside of Bears top scorer Ben Wilson in the final heat to seal the points for Monarchs.

He played down his contribution afterwards, saying: "It's my job, but I was very happy with my performance and also pleased to have won the match for the team."

While Andrew Tully and skipper Matthew Wethers didn't have a champagne kind of night, the pair nevertheless played a crucial part. Tully pinched a vital point in heat 13 which Fisher won and this 4-2 advantage put Monarchs 40-38 in front.

Then Wethers defeated the rampant Wilson in the next race to maintain that slender advantage before Fisher performed his own heroics in the final race showdown.

Campbell commented: "Ryan was simply uncatchable and the way he rode out to the fence in that last heat was magnificent."

Team-mate Kevin Wolbert, who was riding with a sore back following his crash against Glasgow, did an admirable job and picked up ten points and this included two easy wins.

The German said: "I've got fluid in my back and, while I felt fine after three laps of every race, I was in some discomfort on the fourth lap, but I was satisfied with my score."

Jozsef Tabaka, who some feel is not cut out for the Premier League, picked up four points but was defended by Monarchs director Mike Hunter, who said: "This was Jozsef's best away match and he was very unlucky in his second ride, Ryan made the start but the race was pulled back for some reason and, in the re-run Jozsef was brought down by Stuart Swales and excluded.

"I was pretty happy with Jozsef's performance and, if he rode like that at home, we'd be very happy with him." And Byron Bekker, who guested for the sidelined Max Dilger, scored two points while his reserve partner Kalle Katajisto weighed in with five.

The Bears, who used rider replacement for Slovenian Maks Gregoric, may feel they were let down a little by their captain Gary Havelock.

The Englishman romped to a 13-point haul at Newport but could only manage six on his own track.

Monarchs open their Armadale league programme tonight when they host Sheffield Tigers.

Redcar: Wilson 14, Suchanek 12, Sanchez 6, Havelock 6, Swales 6, McKinna 0.

Monarchs: Fisher 15, Wolbert 10, Tully 5, Wethers 5, Katajisto 5, Tabaka 4, Bekker 2.