Swales: Let’s repeat the feat!
Redcar co-promoter Jamie Swales has challenged his side to repeat their 54-36 success over the Edinburgh Monarchs when the two sides clash in this evening’s second leg at the ECCO Arena with tapes up at 17:00.
Edinburgh took a 54-36 win last night to put themselves in control of the tie but the Bears did defeat the Scottish side by the same scoreline in the KO Cup semi-final tie a matter of weeks ago.
The co-promoter has laid down the challenge to his septet to repeat their fantastic 54-36 recent victory over the Monarchs, “ We need to do what we did in the KO Cup match, we need to attack from the off. In the KO Cup match we got ourselves firmly in control and controlled the meeting from there and we need to do that again.”
Swales said, “ We have got to take it to them from the off as they are a good side. I do not expect Sam Masters to have a bad a night as he did a few weeks ago (Masters scored an uncharacteristic 4 on his last visit to Redcar) but we need to make Edinburgh have a bad night like last time. Our boys have to be up for it from the off.”
The former rider also addressed the concerns of the supporters with the fixture taking place on the same day as a Middlesbrough FC fixture, “ It’s not ideal that we are clashing with Middlesbrough but our meetings average 90 minutes and with Middlesbrough kicking off at 19:45 that gives the supporters plenty of time to walk the 1.6 miles from the track to the stadium.”
Swales also explained why the clash could not have been held on another date, “ There are a few reasons why we couldn’t do the fixture on another date, “ Firstly, we could not run on Friday as Edinburgh have the priority on Friday’s, we couldn’t run on our normal alternative night of Sunday due to the British Final taking place and we could not put the meeting back a week as we have an obligation to conclude the tie as soon as possible to avoid running the play-off final in November like last season.”
Another potential option for fans looking in from the outside was to bring the meeting forward to earlier in the afternoon but Swales explained that this option was also not viable, “ We can’t run earlier in the day, the riders don’t like the track earlier in the day, the track doesn’t react the same as it does for an evening meeting and therefore the set-ups are wrong. The main reason was that the medics cannot arrive until later in the afternoon. Stokesley and Nitherdale shows are on and there is a karting event on next door. They will finish mid-afternoon and then they (the medics) will head over to cover our meeting.”
Redcar are without Lewis Kerr after his crash last night with Leon Flint guesting in his place, whilst Erik Riss makes a welcome return to the fold for the Bears at number 1. On the other side of the pits, Adam Roynon comes in to guest for the Monarchs in place of Paco Castagna who is racing in the Italian National Championships whilst the Monarchs are also sweating on the availability of Kye Thomson who also came to grief last night.
Redcar “Agilia” Bears
1. Erik Riss 8.58
2. Rider Replacement for Jason Edwards
3. Leon Flint (guest) 8.00
4. Jordan Jenkins 4.93
5. Charles Wright 7.44
6. Kyle Newman 4.39
7. Kasper Andersen 4.10
™: Jade Mudgway
Edinburgh Monarchs
1. Sam Masters 10.58 ©
2. Lasse Frederiksen 4.00
3. Kye Thomson 6.60
4. Adam Roynon 4.93 (G)
5. Josh Pickering 8.92
6. James Sarjeant 3.68
7. Jacob Hook 4.00
™: John Campbell