Islander15

The new thread is up!! I wanted to wait until April and until all riders were announced. So can people please transfer their teams onto the new thread so that they don’t get lost on this thread.

Sam Woolley seems to have upped his game. Fair play to him.

Yes I’ll put a new thread up.

Armadale Devils 1. Danny Phillips 7.90 2. Josh Embleton 4.83 3. Tom Woolley 7.43 4. George Rothery 4.92 5. William Lawson 7.82 6. Lewis Millar 3.00 7. Gregor Millar 3.88 Total: 39.78 Remaining: 0.22 Belle Vue Colts 1. Jack Smith 8.70 2. Nathan Ablitt 6.29 3. Harry McGurk 6.80 4. Sam McGurk 5.25 5. Jack Parkinson-Blackburn 6.64 6. Freddy Hodder 3.00 7. Archie Freeman 3.00 Total: 39.68 Remaining: 0.32 Berwick Bullets 1. Kyle Bickley 8.75 2. Kieran Douglas 4.18 3. Luke Crang 6.41 4. Ben Rathbone 4.00 5. Greg Blair 7.57 6. Ace Pijper 3.00 7. Mason Watson 3.91 Total: 37.82 Remaining: 2.18 Kent Royals 1. Alfie Bowtell 9.78 2. Jamie Halder 4.63 3. Danno Verge 5.56 4. Joe Alcock 4.36 5. Ben Morley 9.18 6. Sam Woolley 3.00 7. Chris Watts 3.00 Total: 39.51 Remaining: 0.49 Leicester Lion Cubs 1. Dan Thompson 10.17 2. Mickie Simpson 3.62 3. Connor Coles 6.04 4. Tom Spencer 5.53 5. Joe Thompson 8.52 6. Vinnie Foord 3.00 7. Max Perry 3.00 Total: 39.88 Remaining: 0.12 Mildenhall Fen Tigers 1. Ryan Kinsley 9.14 2. Elliot Kelly 4.19 3. Alex Spooner 6.40 4. Sam Bebee 5.16 5. Jason Edwards 8.84 6. Luke Muff 3.00 7. Josh Warren 3.00 Total: 39.73 Remaining: 0.27 Oxford Chargers 1. Jordan Jenkins 9.56 2. Jacob Clouting 4.30 3. Ben Hopwood 5.90 4. Sam Hagon 5.75 5. Nathan Stoneman 8.22 6. Luke Killeen 3.00 7. Arran Butcher 3.00 Total: 39.73 Remaining: 0.27 Plymouth Centurions 1. Dan Gilkes 10.30 2. Connor King 3.67 3. Richard Andrews 6.55 4. Adam Extance 5.67 5. Henry Atkins 5.86 6. Eli Meadows 3.00 7. Ben Trigger 3.57 Total: 38.62 Remaining: 1.38

I meant in terms of nationality. That’s interesting to know thank you. And his ability is irrelevant as anyone can ride NL, there is no minimum standard. Yes I meant how is he eligible for a British passport. Oxford need a reasonable team to get thru fans to watch it and it’s a new venture so they were of course starting from scratch. If he’s riding for the Chargers then there’s a clear avenue for him to ride for the Cheetah’s Championship side too which benefits then and obviously could form part of a good future relationship with Wolves if Oxford need any riders in the future.

Any idea how Killeen is eligible for the NL?

I can’t remember for certain, but didn’t Hopwood ride for Plymouth after IOW in 2018? His IOW ending average was 7.16 but 7.37 at Plymouth.

Hopefully Halder can have a run without injury. He looked a good prospect as a tiny 15 year old!

Welcome back Ben Hopwood! It feels like ages ago he rude but it was only 2018. A strong top 3 of Hopwood, Jenkins & Stoneman. Good luck to Stoneman who deserves a decent run after several nasty injuries. Hagon will continue to improve. But it could be a very long tail. Has anyone seem confirmation of Hopwood or Stoneman’s averages because they must be getting reductions to be within the points limit?

Bowtell & Morley will be the league’s best top 2 pairing by a mile. But is there enough 3.00 & 4.00 riders left to keep the team competitive?

Bullets are under the limit but it’s still a strong team. A very capable top 3 and always a handy senior reserve. The weakness are whoever is at second string but if that rider is struggling then I’m sure dropping to reserve will pick up their scoring.

When you put it like that it does sound nonsensical. But I think the thing we don’t know at the minute is how will the Premiership number 8s really play out. Sheffield’s number 7 might not get injured and Thompson might never ride or can he fill in incase of loss of form?

Congrats to Hawks who is the winner and was the last person to pick a team! 1. Hawks 1975 53.84 2. Islander15 53.56 3. Iron Scorpion 52.32 4. Sings4Speedway 50.93 5. DJC 50.86 6. Reginaldspeed 50.80 7. Technik 50.58 8. Flipper11 50.27 9. Hunters 49.56 10. Bloom89 48.48 11. Potteringaround 48.29 12. Secsy1 45.67 A lot of people chose Atkins or Freeman whose averages didn’t change due to injury.

At least some some others gave a sensible answer.

To those who have watched him at Berwick, is he ready yet?

Not a bad team. Gilkes could be the league’s top rider (Bickley will have something to say about that though!). Atkins in on a false average and Andrews is prolific at home. Those 3 should get them the home win alone most weeks. Best of luck to Extance coming back and he’s always been a rider I enjoyed watching. The might find it a bit tougher at the bottom end though as I’m not sure how good Meadows will perform which puts some pressure on young Trigger. Hopefully they can find a proper number 2 to give those two a season at reserve but I have a feeling they might be under the points limit.

Extance returning would be interesting. Hopefully he can stay fit this time!

Of the new 3.00 riders, I can see Perry being the best.

You’d think there needs to be a rule adjustment as a Prem no. 8 is unlikely to get many rides, if any. But with Mulford already signed up, it’s not fair to block him from riding NL when he’s only done 1 season and still has things to learn.

Blast from the past! Best of luck on his return.

Will the Thompsons want to do NL again?

I forgot to add ‘whichever is highest’. Morley will be 9+ but for some rule change they’ve not told us about.

As Aarnio has been signed on his home form, I’ve had a look at his home scores in 2021 in all comps and he got 69+4 from 32 rides which is an 8.62 average and 9.12 with bonus points. Very impressive! His only poor meeting was in his opener against Leicester in the KOC when he scored 3 from 3. But that was Leicester. His other meetings were against Eastbourne, Newcastle (without Barker), Edinburgh, Berwick, Kent (without Batch) & Birmingham. So the glaring point there is that he missed meetings against most of the top teams, which would artificially inflate his average. Added to that fact he only rode 7 of Scunny’s 13 home meetings, so he needs to have overcome his visa and other problems and actually race to score big home points!

Yep and he’s already getting pressured by the boss to improve his away scores. Someone said on here that it felt like he was always 1 or 2 more bad meetings from the axe this season, and it felt like that for me too. He only produced the goods when he knew he absolutely had to. Given that you start team building with a clean slate, it seems a strange choice to bring him back.

There was a rule that if you’d ever achieved an average above 4.00 in the second tier then you couldn’t double up. If memory serves me right, it stopped Tony Atkin & Jon Armstrong getting short second tier roles. But you seem right about Clegg so they must’ve formalised that rule change now!