eide67

Well done to the Lions...and well done Cookie!

Epic cup tie! Two great teams battling all the way. Horrific heat 8 crash from which Max and Kyle were very lucky to walk away - best wishes to both. Monarchs looked down and out after heat 11 but, as ever this season, would not give up and a fantastic Tabaka ride in heat 14 gave us our only 5-1 of the evening and made the tie all square with one heat to go. Heart-in-the-mouth stuff in heat 15, shown here - http://www.edinburghmonarchs.co/emtv/player.asp?id=100071. You can't hear it on the video, but the Dale just about erupted when Theo got inside Doyle. Can't wait for the replay!

Well done to both teams on providing fantastic entertainment last night. This match had it all - good weather, big noisy crowd, well-prepared track, two evenly matched teams, lots of close racing and passing and a complete surprise hero in young Josh. A great team performance from the Monarchs, with all riders contributing, while Somerset relied mostly on their top three. Always a pleasure to watch Nick Morris at Armadale and I was particularly pleased to see Jozsef coming back to form after a slight dip recently. His efforts in heats 3 & 14 were outstanding. This was proper speedway. Speedway out of the top drawer.....I'll say!

Horrible crash tonight at Armadale - probably the worst I've seen at the track. Claus and Robert seemed to lock together from the start and accelerate straight through the fence, demolishing a huge section. Ironically this came just after the riders had been round collecting for the Ben Fund. Great to hear they were both conscious and talking - really hoping their injuries are not too bad. The meeting had been pretty good up to that point with young Max catching the eye for the home side and Ricky Wells impressing for the second week running. Facundo Albin was very competitive also. There had, however, already been a number of falls. The worst also involving Robert Branford, when he was very unlucky to be excluded in heat 2 when he appeared to be taken off by Derek Sneddon exiting bend 4 and he and his bike were sent hurtling down the home straight.

Craig Cook is a far better rider than he showed on Monday night. He wasn't out of his depth as far as rider quality is concerned - he's beaten many of the other riders involved this season, including Bjerre & Harris, as well as all the other Brits with a chance of getting in the squad. What he doesn't have is experience in this type of meeting and he did look nervous and perhaps froze a bit - didn't look his usual self on the bike. I think if he'd made the pass on Ljung stick in his first race he would have had a completely different night and probably got around 8 or 9. He's generally got the better of Jason Doyle this season, beating him on Doyle's home track in both leagues - pretty spectacularly from the back at Somerset in the Sky match - and I'm sure no-one is suggesting Jason was out of his depth in Event 1. He probably could do with some media advice (although he may well not have said everything quoted in the Scotsman article - that particular journalist has got previous), but he strikes me as his own man and there's a lot to be said for raw honesty sometimes rather than banal media babble. A trip to Prague would have been great experience for him and helped his development. A missed opportunity by Team GB I think. Good luck to the four who are representing GB and the silver lining for me is that Cookie will be at Redcar on Thursday and Armadale on Friday.

From the 3rd bend it looked like Joe had just got past Ludvig on the outside with Max charging hard on the inside and about level as they entered the bend. There appeared to be contact between Max and Ludvig which sent him flying into Joe and both into the fence. Difficult to say if it was Max barging Ludvig or Ludvig turning into Max but definitely not Joe's fault in my opinion. If I'm being honest my first reaction was that I thought Max would be excluded. Overall I thought the match was fiercely contested by two excellent sides on a track on which it was difficult, but not impossible, to pass.

Came in from being taken out for Father's Day to find Monarchs only 4 down after heat 9. After going 6 down (7 on agg.) after the next heat I thought that was just too much for this patched-up team. Incredibly exciting to watch online as the results came in for the last 5 heats - it must have been absolutely fantastic to be watching it live at the track. Brilliant result for the boys in blue & gold - they just don't know when they're beaten. Commiserations to the Diamonds after an epic cup tie. These are two great teams this year who, unbelievably, have not won either of their last two home meetings!

Fantastic meeting between two good evenly matched teams on a superb track. I though there was just enough dirt to provide great racing with passing inside, outside or, in Jozsef Tabaka's case, right through the middle. Heats 7, 12, 13 & 14 were the pick of the bunch for me, then the cookstar rounded it off in an epic final heat. Looked great in HD - I'm away to watch it again!