Tapes Up: Diamonds Back On Top Of Premier League By Defeating Lively Edinburgh

Thank you to George English and the Diamonds Media Team for the following post and photo.

Newcastle Diamonds 53
Edinburgh Monarchs 39
Premier League

Top Scorers:

Newcastle Diamonds - Claes Nedermark 14 2, Christian Henry 14

Edinburgh Monarchs - Theo Pijper 12 1, Andrew Tully 9

At the third time of trying the Newcastle Diamonds finally took on the Edinburgh Monarchs at Brough Park last night, albeit still on a wet track thanks to afternoon showers as the side desperately tried to get the points required to regain the League's top slot.

But Stuart Robson and Paul Starke were woefully slow off the gate in Heat One as Kevin Wolbert and Mason Campton jetted away from them, but coming off bend two on the second lap Robson took a hard dive under Campton to turn the visitors 1-5 into a 2-4 as the Diamonds started a game of catch-up rather early.

Claes Nedermark made easy work of Heat Two in a shared race, but following a share in Heat Three Nedermark threw away a heat advantage when he fell in third place on the first bend of lap three in Heat Four to end up with yet another shared 3-3 taking the score to 11-13.

Christian Henry and Mark Lemon made short shrift of Helfer in Heat Five as Wolbert's bike packed in on the opening bend to record the first Newcaslte 5-1 of the night to push the home side into the lead 16-14.

Robson and Nedermark did likewise to Andrew Tully and Campton in Heat six to solidify the home lead to a more comfortable 21-15, and following another shared 3-3 in the seventh before Henry again took a massive untroubled win in Heat Eight with Nedermark taking a solid second in another home maximum to put Newcastle 10-up.

Tully, on a tactical ride for double points could make no inroads into the Newcastle maximum from Lemon and Henry which put the Diamonds 34-20 up, but come Heat 12 with the Monarchs' Pijper growing ever more comfortable on the Brough shale he took the three points easily in a Monarchs' 2-4 followed up by another share in 13 to move the score on to 45-35.

The final two races sealed the win for the Diamonds and shot them back to the top of the Premier League table on 48 point.

Team manager George English said: "This sets us up nicely for the play-off for the League Championships and now all we need to guarantee ourselves pole position for that event is to get a draw at Plymouth on Friday night for two points."