By Scott Dougal, PA International

Scottish Olympian Craig MacLean was ousted from the third round of the men's sprint at the Commonwealth Games.

The Edinburgh rider was pushed into a repechage against New Zealand's Justin Grace and Josiah Ng Onn Lam of Malaysia after coming off second best against England's Jamie Staff.

And it was the Malaysian who claimed the quarter-final place.

The Scotsman, a silver-medallist in the Olympic sprint in Sydney, is track rusty after breaking his collarbone racing in Japan earlier this year and it showed as he limped through the early stages.

He had to win a repechage in the first round as well, beating Kiwi Justin Seddon in a three-way race that saw Marco Librizzi disqualified for blocking the New Zealander in a bid to help his compatriot.

Staff, a former BMX world champion who only took to the track six months ago, outpaced MacLean in the cat-and-mouse, three-lap contest to condemn him to the repechage.

The Englishman is in powerful form despite his inexperience which saw him forced into an early attack because he could not follow MacLean's example in performing a track stand - stopping the bike dead on the track - as he hasn't learned how to do that yet.

Staff, a bronze medallist in the 1km time-trial on Sunday, held on to take the win regardless.

However MacLean does not think the relative novice has got the tactical nous yet to take him to the top of the podium on Thursday.

"He's very strong but I'd be very surprised if he goes through to the gold/silver final because he's still a bit naive tactically although I'd still like to see a British rider win it," he said.

Staff admits as much himself, conceding that MacLean was still tired after the first-round repechage.

"He's a good rider tactically but he had to do a rep in the last round," said Staff.

Australia's Sean Eadie - who broke the Commonwealth record set minutes earlier by Staff in qualification - is in formidable form while Ross Edgar of Scotland is also in good shape.

The Aussie won silver in Kuala Lumpur four years ago but has been amazed by the sharp rise in standards in Manchester.

"It's been very, very close," he said. "The standard's much, much better than in KL."

Eadie has both the brains and the legs to win the gold but he is refusing to count his chickens yet.

He added: "I came here just trying to do a personal best. Now I just want to get a good series together."

Edgar won another Anglo-Scottish tie, this time against Andy Slater, to claim his quarter-final slot while Slater was fortunate enough to come through his repechage after the winner Anthony Peden of New Zealand was disqualified.