After the euphoria of Friday night’s victory at Armadale the Tigers were brought back down to earth with a bang as Edinburgh ran out 51-39 winners.
The fast starting Monarchs proved why they are the reigning Premier League champions with a fine display that will have delighted their large travelling support.
Erik Riss set the tone in heat 1 with an impressive tapes to flag victory while Sam Masters took 3rd behind James Sarjeant.
Victor Palovaara won heat 2 but the Monarchs filled the minor places to maintain their lead.
The strong pairing of Sedgmen and Wolbert left Summers and Berge trailing to extend the away side’s advantage to 6 points.
Craig Cook took advantage of the referee’s decision to re-run heat 4 and sped from the start to win ahead of Lawson and Palovaara.
Sam Masters made it 3 wins in a row for the capital side as he took advantage of a mistake by Aaron Summers while Riss finished 3rd to extend their lead to 18-12.
Richie Worrall and James Sarjeant gated on a 5-1 in heat 6 but the home reserve came down. Worse was to follow for the Tigers as Cook took the lead with a fine outside swoop on turn 4.
Heat 7 was shared with Lawson taking the chequered flag ahead of Sedgmen and Wolbert.
Finally the Tigers fans had something to cheer with a 5-1 from Lawson and Sarjeant although Riss pushed the Glasgow reserve for the full 4 laps.
However, the Monarchs hit back with a 4-2 in heat 9 thanks to Cook and Clegg.
They then repeated the trick in heat 10 as Sedgmen made a fine start to head home guest Worrall and Wolbert took 3rd making it 34-26.
Richard Lawson won heat 11 but with Palovaara at the back the gap remained 8 points.
Heat 12 was re-run after Riss took a heavy tumble in the original staging. Hopefully, there is no lasting damage as the German certainly played his part for the Monarchs with some determined racing.
Cook took his 4th victory of the afternoon ahead of Lawson in heat 13 and with Masters finishing 3rd the match was over.
Sedgmen won his 3rd race of the afternoon in heat 14 to pretty much guarantee the 4 league points for his side.
Cook and Wolbert led Lawson going into turn 3 of heat 15 with the Glasgow man running out of room and crashing coming out of the 4th bend after passing the German.
The re-run saw Cook complete his maximum with Wolbert finishing behind Summers for another 4-2 on a day where the Cumbrian was undoubtedly the fastest man on show.
For the home side only Richard Lawson offered any real resistance and the continued poor form of Dimitri Berge must be a cause for concern. The French teenager now looks a shadow of the rider who set a new track record during the Sky match against Sheffield.
The Tigers will look to re-group and it’s probably safe to say that we can look forward to a few more hard fought battles between these sides as the season progresses.
Tigers Scorers:
Richie Worrall – 4
R/R
Aaron Summers – 8
Dimitri Berge – 2+1
Richard Lawson 13
Victor Palovaara – 7+2
James Sarjeant – 5+2