Edinburgh were made to work very hard to beat a determined Glasgow team at Armadale in the rearranged match on Sunday. Monarchs finally emerged victorious by 46 points to 43 after another last heat decider. While thre were one or two decent heats, the meeting was rather 'flat' for a Glasgow-Edinburgh derby.
Edinburgh toiled in the early heats despite being gifted a heat 1 advantage when Les Collins suffered an engine failure in his first lap. Glasgow levelled in heat 2 after Derek Sneddon was excluded. Things remained level until Glasgow took a surprise but deserved lead thanks to Emiliano Sanchez and Mark Courtney. The foundations of Edinburgh's win came in a spell starting with a 4-2 in heat nine, followed by 5-1 in heat ten and another 4-2 in heat eleven. That gave Monarchs a six point lead that they held pretty much to the end.
Glasgow used James Grieves as a tactical substitute in heat twelve and this helped them tie the heat and maintain Monarchs six point lead. There then followed a farcical heat 13. Robert Eriksson was struggling at the back and seemed to have quit with engine problems when Les Collins hit the fourth bend fence and caused the race to be stopped. Eriksson was ruled to be 'not under power' at the time and was also excluded from the re-run. With Monarchs' lead at six it was clearly in Glasgow's interest not to win the re-run with two riders as it would stop them using tactical substitutions in heat 14. Jan Andersen gated ahead of James Grieves who made no attempt to pass.
With the lead up to seven points, Glasgow used Sanchez as a tactical substitute in heat 14 and headed Mark Courtney to a 5-1 to trim the lead to three points and set up the last heat decider. Peter Carr again did the business to win the match for Monarchs after a tiring Robert Eriksson went too wide on the second bend and slipped from third to last.
Peter Carr turned in an imacculate 15-point full maximum but was the only home rider who was on anything like his best form. Robert Eriksson scored 8 points from five rides. Jan Andersen came back after two defeats to record 10 points from four rides. Blair Scott picked to 6 paid 8 from four. René Aas struggled to get out of the starts and also found the track difficult to come to terms with. Christian Henry was rather subdued with 4 points from five rides while Derek Sneddon took 2 paid 4 from three rides.
James Grieves was top scorer for Glasgow with 14 points from six rides. He started with a couple of wins and finished with four second places. Emiliano Sanchez came up with an excellent 11 paid 13 from six rides. Les Collins had a nightmare meeting with a engine failure in heat one and couple of second places followed by a heat 13 exclusion. Stuart Swales was good value with 6 paid 7 from four rides while Mark Courtney was disappointing with only 4 paid 6 from four. Aidan Collins took 3 points from three while Scott Courtney took 1 point from three.
Monarchs leapfrog their rivals Glasgow to take third place in the Northern Group Table. They remain two points behind Sheffield and it is looking like Workington and Sheffield are favourites for quaification. Monarchs are looking to win their last three matches at home to Berwick and Hull and away to Glasgow. This could keep them in contention if Sheffield make any mistakes. Results and tables are given below: