MD

With such little respect for the BSPL, its secretive decision making and aversion to transparency, who would scrutinise the scrutineers. Giving wage responsibility to them is the equivalent of asking the Communist Party to manage the Bank of England.

No one is deceived by Sedgmen only beating reserves each meeting. He is a second string unable to beat other second strings.

For every Kye Thomson there are 15 Willie Lawsons'. Luck plays a huge part along with getting them on a low average where they can have limited impact on the team if they are sh1te.

The three risks were Sedgmen, Wells and Ostergaard, and only one came off. You need at least one improver in any team. Broc Nicol has increased his average but having shown he was a decent small track rider in 2019, those qualities seem to have deserted him. Ironically Ostergaard may have made himself unemployable next season with an average just under 8.

No one maintains immaculate standards all year. In 2019 Rasmus Jensen stepped up on the occasions Cook did'nt which were mainly on the road. The rationale of building a team with strength from 1-7 was sound however Sedgmen and Wells havent fulfilled what were perceived to be bargain averages. Connor Bailey not showing at the start didnt help and now he appears back at square one, and with no NDL team isnt riding enough to improve. All these issues were present before Oystercard was injured, its just now they are magnified as it was Ulle's scoring that was keeping us afloat. We might also be wary of making a change even though its glaring we need one. In 2019 we moved Sarjeant on and brought in MBA which backfired. He was somehow worse than Sarjeant.

Think he was being given a chance to regain his confidence at reserve but its made no difference . If anything he's gotten worse not helped by losing his place at Sheffield. We may be better to field a young overseas rider with a view to next year if available on 5 points.

On the bright side, very few teams will go to Newcastle and take a point. If Eastbourne pack up, two of their riders could seriously improve our team.

That's partly why I thought of Summers who rides at a Saturday track though he did have a shocker of a guest appearance for us at Redcar many years ago, think he got a point and lost us the meeting having been there with the 0131 just before it and got double figures but that's the way it goes. Second in the averages is an extremely difficult position to cover with r/r in a very strong team never mind ours.

Absolutely, we also don't need to use the highest averaged riders available like Jye Etheridge the other week, when riders on lower averages can do a much better job at certain tracks. Aaron Summers may be worth a shout for home meetings, he was impressive at Ashfield two weeks ago and perhaps has turned a corner. Outside the play off contenders there isn't much choice though Paul Starke is a rider I keep thinking could do a reasonable job. Just not Jye Etheridge again.

Just like Lewis Kerr in 2018, Ulrich has been our rider of the season and his points have covered the arses of some of his colleagues who have more than underperformed. Perhaps announcing Ulle's season being over is that a signing is imminent. Its a hard average to fill.

#FFS

Potential banana skin this one. The rain forecast for the next two days has already improved for today, though thunderstorms now predicted for Friday. The track will definitely have some moisture in it which won't suit Sedg, come to think of it he doesn't much like the dry either. If Palin is on song at reserve we could be twitching again.

Job done somehow. Best wishes to the injured riders.

Wish Sedgmen would do likewise.

We've been twitching half the season!

Ht12 60.47 Ht13 60.69 Ht14 61.13 Ht15 60.56

Danyon Hume guests for Flint tonight, a decent choice.

Still sticking to the inner half of the circuit when the racing lines have moved outside, same as against Edinburgh. Frustrating but still came away with 6+1.

The latter though we gifted Berwick too many points. A good meeting though remains to be seen if its enough points to go through. Wells had his best meeting to date though expected more from Leon who started brightly before finishing with two no scores.

Looks a good shout. In choosing a guest we also didnt need to look for like for like averages but those who ride Ashfield well even if not 7 pointers such as Paul Starke or Tom Brennan who have a bit of fight about them. However they may well have been tried and declined. Going with r/r would have given Cook an extra ride, likely equalled Jye's points and a point from any of the other two rides (im excluding ht13) would have avoided defeat. Easy for me to say though! The plus about all this is it has exposed weaknesses that have been present so far and dont appear to be improving which will prompt changes IMO. Not so sure about Dickson, the self proclaimed tactical genius didnt always get it right.

I thought Willie ran out of puff in some of the heats he was being hunted down, 7 rides in the sun maybe not his thing!

Sedg needs to be taking points from second strings especially at home. Yesterday he only beat the Edinburgh reserves who gained 3 points and 8 last places between them, a not so difficult task to gain 7 points. He would arguably have beaten Nathan Greaves but you just never know. Its not just an expectation that he wins ht2. Sedg is stylish and controlled but sticks rigidly to the inner half of the track even when the racing lines have moved out wide. Time to be a bit less conservative and push beyond his comfort zone. He's got the ability and the team really needs a free scoring reserve now Sam Jensen has moved up and injuries have struck.

He guested for us several times in 2018 & 2019 and was immense but is a shadow of that now. Perhaps the lockdown nonsense has killed his appetite for speedway.

Sedgmen only beat the Edinburgh reserves and Wells beat Thomson in his first heat then only the Edinburgh reserves which is masked in their scoring. Both are currently passengers with their averages not yet bottoming out. Here was us thinking we got them on bargains. Sedgmen must be the highest averaged and most experienced reserve in the league after Oor Wullie but doesnt show it. We will find out the new averages for August shortly.