Edinburgh come back from a tough three match tour and given their current injury crisis will be relieved that this Friday's match is the Scottish Masters Challenge rather than a Premier League fixture.
Peter Carr is definately out of the meeting following his injury last Friday. He is replaced by David Walsh of Hull who performed brilliantly a couple of weeks back guesting for Jan Andersen. Peter Carr has asked not to be ruled out of Sunday's return at Ashfield because his injury is responding well to treatment.
The news on Dalle Andersson is less encouraging. He has returned to Sweden for a medical and its has been confirmed that his foot is broken. The foot is now in plaster and Dalle could be out for up to six weeks. Dalle appears certain to move up to heat leader next month but at the moment is in return so only a Conference League rider. This gives the opportunity for an extended run in the side for Rory Schlein. Rory has been piling up points guesting for a number of Premier Leeague especially Glasgow, Newport, and Sheffield. He has a lean time in three matches for Monarchs on tour but he was suffering from clutch problems and was unable to get out of the starts fast enough.
The injuries sustained by Christian Henry and Ben Shields do not appear to be serious and both riders are down to start on Friday. Jan Andersen looked far from fully fit at times. However he has come through a run of six matches in seven days including one in Denmark, one in Sweden and four in Britain, since returning after recovering from concussion.
Blair Scott is a rider with something to prove after a dismal run on tour. The lack of points from Blair have put his team place at risk. He is now hot favourite to drop down to reserve next month. Blair will be looking for big scores this weekend prior to departing for Slovenia for the Under-21 semi-final round in Krsko.
Glasgow are expected to give a debut to Henning Bager in place of Stuart Swales who is quitting speedway for a period. As things stand, Simon Cartwright would have to be replaced by a three pointer to accommodate Bager. Glasgow have announced that Bager will probably join their team on August 1st. By then it is likely that Cartwright will have a 2001 average of 3.00 and Bager will slot into the team without further disruption.
The two fixtures this weekend are challenge matches and the two promotions have proved to be flexible with the rules on rules in the past.
The match will provide a return to Armadale for on-loan Monarch Derek Sneddon. He will come directly up against Ben Shields who replaced him in the Monarchs' line-up a few weeks back. Both Derek and Ben will have points to prove.