Speedway Star, this week, listed the top 30 riders in Premier League fixtures, home and away. The results are very revealing about why Monarchs ulimately failed to make the sort of impact in the Premier League that they made in the Cup and the Premier National Trophy.
In the 'home' section, Peter Carr and James Grieves are the top two by some margin with averages of 11.19 and 11.05 respectively. Behind them are Grand Prix rider Carl Stonehewer on 10.88, Petri Kokko on 10.81 and Sean Wilson on 10.71. Kevin Little found his way into 20th place with an average of 9.52.
Away from home, it was a very differrent story. Sean Wilson on 10.41, Stonehewer on 9.51 and Jesper Olsen on 9.18 dominate the charts. Peter Carr is down in 11th place on 8.26 while James Grieves is in 21st place on 7.32 sandwiched between Neville Tatum and Danny Bird. Kevin Little is nowhere near a top-30 placing with an average of around 5.45.
By contrast, in the National Trophy qualifiers, Little averaged over nine points away from home and Grieves wasn't far behind.
This sums up why Monarchs failed to win more than three away matches out of twelve after winning two out of three away in the National Trophy.
The results from the heat leaders are mirrored by the rest of the team with the notable exception of Ross Brady. Ross just missed out on a top-30 place away from home and averaged just under seven points both home and away. Blair Scott, Stewart McDonald, and especially David McAllan all failed to deliver the points away from home that their Armadale performances would suggest.
There are a number of factors that could explain this discrepancy, notably mid-season injuries to Kevin Little and James Grieves that seemed to knock their confidence on big tracks. There is also the Barum v Dunlop hard compound tyre problem. Monarchs' heat leaders persisted with the slower gating Dunlop tyres and were unable to come from the back away from home as effectively as they could do so at Armadale.
The problem of away scoring will have to be addressed by Peter Carr, James Grieves and other Monarchs for next year if their illusive first league championship win is to be achieved.