AWESOME seems an inadequate description of the display Edinburgh Scotwaste Monarchs produced against Scunthorpe at Armadale.
Monarchs stormed to their biggest-ever score at the Lothian Arena as they humbled the Scorpions 68-22.
They won't have an easier Premier League match all season yet, despite the huge chasm between the sides, the racing was hugely entertaining an
d it was by no mean a procession.
Three Monarchs stars were all unbeaten by the opposition – William Lawson and Andrew Tully posted 15-point maximums and team-mate Matthew Wethers scored a paid maximum.
It was Tully, though, who lifted the Man of the Match award.
The Bathgate racer is quite simply on fire at the moment and picked up where he left off at Rye House and Mildenhall recently when he romped to double figure returns.
His confidence level is in the stratosphere – and it showed. He oozed assurance and never put a wheel wrong in any of his five outings.
Tully, who celebrates his 21st birthday on Monday, rode for Scunthorpe for two years and revealed he wanted to get one over his former gaffer Rob Godfrey.
Tully said: "I spoke to Rob about this match in midweek and I told him I was really keen to put one over on him".
By his own admission Tully made a stuttering start to the season and he blames no one but himself.
He said: "At the start of the campaign, I was up for it but in some of my races – especially the heat two reserve one – I made a lot of mistakes and kept falling off. Now I've settled down a bit and I'm more calm when I'm riding."
It was Tully's first 15-point maximum and he basked in the moment when he defeated Richard Hall in heat 14 to clinch his full house.
"I feel great about my score," he said, "I was a bit gutted not to have scored a maximum at Mildenhall, I felt I deserved to, but it was good to get it against Scunthorpe because I enjoyed riding for them for two years."
Tully, who has been called up for the World under-21 quarter final in Germany next Saturday as a replacement for the crocked Steve Boxall, added that, while Monarchs enjoyed a veritable points feast, he didn't feel the match was that one-sided.
"To be fair, a couple of the Scunthorpe riders were injured. They do have a good side but they didn't have a good night tonight. I think it will be a different story in the return match on Monday."
Tully's team-mate Lawson has, at long last, shrugged off the machine problems which dogged him in 2007 and the Perthshire rider now looks a real class act.
He has a fantastically tidy style into the bends and no opponent fazes him.
Lawson won his opening race in the quickest time of the season but said afterwards, with a straight face: "My first couple of races, I started off a bit slowly but, by the end of the match, things turned out pretty good."
Wethers, who is sometimes taken for granted, was a model of steadiness and the way he and Tully caught Scorpions ace Magnus Karlsson in a pincer movement for a 5-1 in heat seven was high-calibre speedway.
Karlsson, a member of Monarchs' 2003 championship-winning squad, was Scunthorpe's top scorer with nine points.
And, although the Swede won his first ride, he was later engulfed in the points tide which flowed from his old Monarchs teammates. Only Carl Wilkinson, who looked spectacular but couldn't produce enough points to match his style, offered Karlsson any degree of support.
Monarchs extracted nine 5-1 advantages which underlined their total superiority. The match was over as a contest by the first half.
Ryan Fisher whilst picking up eight, might have been expected to card an unbeaten score given the weakness of the opposition.
But the Californian seems to have perennial bike set-up problems. He groaned: I think a lot of the problems are in my head. I think I have my set-ups figured out only to discover I haven't. I'll just keep persevering."
Skipper Derek Sneddon, who had three second places and an exclusion after bursting the tapes in his second ride, was naturally delighted. He said: "We are on fire right now, and everybody is enjoying their speedway."
Monarchs certainly won't be complacent about Monday's clash at Normanby Road but, equally, they will be disappointed if they don't complete the double over the Scorpions.
Monarchs: Tully 15, Lawson 15, Wethers 11, Fisher 8, Summers 7, Jonasson 6, Sneddon 6.
Scorpions: Karlsson 9, Wilkinson 5, Hall 4, Moore 2, James 1, Bekker 1, Richardson 0.
The full article contains 797 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
