Brian Turner's injuries sustained last Friday do not seem to be as bad as first thought. He aggrevated his old injury but there appears to be no real damage. He will miss the two legs of the Premiership against Sheffield this week. Monarchs have no match next week due to the Under-21 Final being staged at Armadale. Brian is due for a medical examination on April 11th with a view to a possible return against the touring Czech side on Friday 14th April.
Christian Henry also suffered no permanent damage and rode at Glasgow two days later. The other rider involved, Glasgow's Scott Courtney, was not so lucky. He suffered a broken wrist that will keep him out for three months.
In the first leg of the Premiership at Sheffield, Monarchs will aginst use Jon Swales in the number 6 race jacket. Jon was certainly off the pace at Ashfield on Sunday although this was probably down to his upright bike. This is fine on small tight circuits or at Conference League level but was never going to be fast enough for Ashfield let alone Owlerton. Jon will use brother Jamie's laydown at Sheffield on Thursday.
The Premiership gives Edinburgh an early chance to pick up some national silverware. Edinburgh probably still hold the trophy since it was not contested in 1999 when the 1998 Premier League champions Peterborough moved up to the Elite League while runners' up Reading were also 1998 cup winners.
The two sets of matches between Edinbinburgh and Sheffield were both very close with Sheffield just taking the bonus point while Edinburgh nicked the cup tie by the narrowest of margins after a last-heat decider at Owlerton. There was also a lot of off-track animosity. This started with Sheffield persuing a ludicrous claim to have qualified for the Premier National Trophy.
Things went downhill from there with allegations of tyre tampering, a pit gate gate fracas, and a major dispute over guests. Monarchs had signed Sheffield asset Jamie Birkenshaw on loan from Workington as cover for the injured David McAllan when Sheffield named him as number 7 in their team for the Armadale Cup Semi-final when he was already down at number 6 for Edinburgh. This dispute led to him riding for neither side. Things boiled up even more for the Sheffield leg when James Grieves was declared injured and replaced by Owlerton specialist Paul Pickering. Sheffield protested long and loud especially when Pickering backed Peter Carr to keep André Compton at the back in the crucial last-heat decider. This spilled over to the National Fours final at Peterborough three days later when Sheffield tried to have James Grieves thrown out of the event.
With both Edinburgh and Sheffield having retained the core of their team from last year, this will be an interesting confrontation.