The Allied Vehicles Tigers began this match knowing that if they took one match point then they would qualify for the semi-finals of the League Cup.
However, The match finished Edinburgh 50 Glasgow 42 and Edinburgh are now firm favourites to win the Border group of the League Cup.
The Tigers got off to the worst possible start when they conceded a 5-1 in the opening heat with Cook equalling the track record, but Victor Palovaara continued his sequence of winning heat 2 at Armadale, when he led the home pairing to share the heat.
Edinburgh’s German duo of Wolbert and Riss extended the Monarchs lead to 12-6, but Tigers stemmed the tide by sharing heats 5 and 6 to keep the home side’s lead to six points at 18-12.
Edinburgh again took maximum points in heat 6, to take the Armadale side’s lead to ten points, but the Tigers quickly responded by using their tactical ride with Aaron Summers wearing the black and white helmet cover in heat 7.
Near Miss
All was going to plan in the race as Kozza Smith and Aaron Summers led until the final bend. Kozza slowed up to let Aaron through, but Masters was waiting and took advantage to pass both our riders, and a potential Tigers 8-1 suddenly became a 5-3.
Victor took his second heat win of the night in heat 8, and with Dimitri taking third place, the Tigers cut the deficit back to six points at 28-22.
A Nick Morris heat 9 victory followed by Aaron Summers splitting the Cook/Sedgmen pairing saw the Tigers fall to eight behind at 35-27.
Aaron and Victor took a 4-2 in heat 12 to pull the scores back to 40-34, but Nick Morris took the huge scalps of Cook and Masters in heat 13 to share the heat and keep the deficit at six points with two heats remaining.
Kozza and Victor filled the minor places in heat 14, to put the scores at 46-40 to Edinburgh going into the last race. In this race the Allied Vehicles Tigers only needed to share the heat to progress to the League Cup semi-finals.
However, it wasn’t to be as we lost a 4-2 to the exceptionally strong duo of Cook and Masters. Nick split the pair but just couldn’t get ahead of Cook.
This made the final score Edinburgh 50 Allied Vehicles Tigers 42.
All things considered this was an excellent performance from the Tigers who just failed to get the match point we needed to guarantee our semi-final place. However, all is not lost as we can still qualify as best runners up but this will depend on results elsewhere.
Tigers Scorers:
Richard Lawson 1 2 2 0 = 5
Dimitri Berge 0 1* 1 = 2+1
Aaron Summers 2 4^ 2 3 0 = 11
Kozza Smith 0 1* 0 2 = 3+1
Nick Morris 2 1 3 3 2 = 11
Victor Palovaara 3 1* 3 1* 1 1* = 10+3
Danny Phillips 0 0 0 = 0