Last updated 19:49, Thursday, 14 August 2008

COMETS’ top-four Sky TV clash with Edinburgh turned into a horror film despite teenage senation Tai Woofinden guesting at No1.

ABANDONED: First corner action from heat six as Comets’ guest rider Tomas Topinka (red) leads Glasgow’s Mitchell Davey (yellow) and the partly hidden Anders Andersen (green) with Comets’ guest Ben Taylor (blue) at the back. The meeting was abandoned two heats later

The Monarchs had the match in the bag by heat five as they raced in to a 23-6 lead courtesy of four race maximums.

Heat five was one of them and in many ways that summed up Workington’s night.

Woffinden, standing in for the injured Daniel Nermark, was handed the black and white helmet colour to take a tactical ride.

Already trailing 18-5 after four races they badly needed a big points advantage from that race to start edging back into the contest.

But unfortunately Woffinden, riding hard to make an impression after a slow start, just clipped Matthew Wethers who was riding low in the saddle on his outside.

Wethers went down and referee Jim McGregor ruled that the Workington guest had been to blame and he was excluded. It was an impossible task for Conference League rider Ben Taylor, standing-in at number two as Wethers and Thomas Jonasson raced to another 5-1.

Woffinden had been stranded with mechanical problems in the very first race of the night so after two outings the British whiz kid hadn’t scored a point.

He showed why he is regarded so highly with two forceful rides to win his next two starts but then came disaster for Woffinden and the Comets in the last race.

He had taken over in the lead after race partner Kauko Nieminen had lost a chain and was heading for a win when his engine cut out ahead of the last turn to allow Mark Lemon and Andrew Tully through for their sixth heat maximum.

Nieminen, like Woffinden, had mixed luck all night. He had started with an exclusion after leaping into the path of Jonasson and bringing both of them down into the fence.

It was more the condition of the track than a misjudgement by the Finn, which team manager Ian Thomas insisted should have been taken into consideration by referee Jim McGregor.

The track had certainly posed problems early on and clearly the home riders handled it better than the visitors.

Workington made a better fist of over the second half of the meeting but just didn’t have enough fire power to put the Monarchs under pressure.

Carl Stonehewer, Joe Haines, John Branney and Ben Taylor mustered only seven points between them; Nieminen and Woffinden had two race wins each and the Comets only had one race advantage, a 4-2 in heat 12.

They were stats that were going to end up one way, a big win for the Monarchs which underlined their credentials for a strong tilt at the league title.

Comets manager Ian Thomas said: “It’s going to be tough because they have a very solid side, but I am determined that we will get back some lost pride at Derwent Park.

“They are a well-balanced side, without an out and out number one, so I think it’s going to be interesting to see how they go round Derwent Park as it is a bit of a contrast to Edinburgh.”

Edinburgh 59: Lemon 13, Sneddon 3, Jonasson 8, Wethers 7, Fisher 7, Tully 12, Summers 9.

Workington 30: Woffinden 7, Taylor 2, Nieminen 8, Haines 3, Stonehewer 2, Wright 8, Branney 0.

l Comets’ home meeting against Glasgow on Saturday evening was abandoned after eights heats following heavy rain throughout most of the day.

The meeting has been re-arranged for August 30 when Newcastle Diamonds were the scheduled visitors. They will now come on September 13.