SHEFFIELD face a massive recovery mission at Owlerton on Thursday after going down by 28-points at Edinburgh in the first leg of the promotion play-offs.

The Monarchs showed exactly why they have been crowned Premier League Champions, and were led by Ryan Fisher with a 15-point maximum backed up by strong contributions from the rest of their top five.

For Tigers it was a long and difficult night, as already using rider-replacement for the unavailable Richard Hall, they were beset by a series of problems and crashes, with both Josh Auty and Ricky Ashworth coming down twice.

Simon Lambert was a fine winner of Heat 2 and a late-match rally saw the visitors gain 4-2s from Heats 11 and 12 with wins for Ashworth and Josef Franc, but the Monarchs regained their composure and took the last three heats 13-5 to open up an imposing advantage.

EDINBURGH: Ryan Fisher 15, Matt Wethers 10+3, Kevin Wolbert 10+1, Andrew Tully 10+1, Kalle Katajisto 9+1, William Lawson 5+1, Ashley Morris 0.

SHEFFIELD: Josef Franc 10, Ricky Ashworth 7, Simon Lambert 6+2, Ricky Wells 5, Hugh Skidmore 2, Josh Auty 1, Richard Hall r/r.