Edinburgh are looking to equal their all time record winning streak of twelve matches by beating Swindon away and Reading at home this week. In this current run Monarchs have beaten Sheffield, Stoke, Swindon, and Workington at home and Arena Essex and Workington away in the league. There are home and away wins against Newcastle in the cup and wins at Glasgow in the PNT and Berwick in the Scottish Triangle Team Championship.

Edinburgh won twelve matches in a row in 1951, at home to Newcastle, Fleetwood, Wembley in a challenge match, Glasgow, Motherwell, Ashfield and Fleetwood again, plus away at Ashfield, Fleetwood, Motherwell, Newcastle and Leicester before going down at home to a strong composite side labelled 'London', then losing a National Trophy tie at Halifax. The 1951 team was led by the eventual 1951 World Champion Jack Young.

More recently in 1997, Edinburgh had an eleven match winning run. This contained home league wins over Oxford, Sheffield, Berwick, Glasgow, Hull and Reading. There were away league wins at Arena Essex, Sheffield, and Glasgow and home and away wins in the cup final against Oxford. This run was brought to a halt with a 48 to 42 reverse at Brough Park. Monarchs lost five in a row after the winning streak.

Monarchs are also looking to preserve their place at the top of the Premier League table. With Sheffield at home to Newcastle on Thursday, Edinburgh really need to get a draw at least from the trip to Swindon. Swindon have a powerful line-up on paper but have never really gelled on track this season. They will, nevertheless, provide a very tough test for Monarchs on a track where many of the Monarchs team will have had little experience.

Monarchs will go clear at the top if they beat Reading at Armadale on Friday although this will be far from easy. Reading have been tagged as too weak all season but have quietly put together a good sequence of results. Reading still have a 100% home record and have won twice at Glasgow and drawn at Workington. They lost by 46-44 in 1997 at Armadale in the Premier League and came even closer at 45-44 in 1998.

Reading are led by Dave Mullet who is one of the most consistently impressive visitors at Armadale. Their other heat leaders Phil Morris and Petri Kokko have never really shown much form at Armadale. Second string Paul Clews was a match-winner at Glasgow and could be a threat. At reserve, Reading have former Monarchs' heat leader Jarno Kosonen who averaged over eight points at Armadale in 1997 before being replaced by Peter Carr.

If Monarchs can go into the weekend on top of the table they will stay there for a week or so as the Fours Qualifiers take centre-stage.