DaveWayne

Interesting to see a few comments on this thread saying that Birmingham's issue was gating, as I thought that was their strength the previous week against Sheffield. The 3 5-1s in the first four races were down to getting out of the gate first and staying in front on a one line track.

I think the strength of most of the squads this season means away wins are going to be quite rare, so the final table is likely to come down to aggregate points having a big impact. The Sheffield squad is built on having a very strong top 5 at home, which should see them pick up the majority of the extra points over the season. This in theory will see them into the top 4, and barring disasters they will be capable of giving any team a battle over the 2 leg play off matches. My opinion on this might change when they finally ride at home !!

Don't plan an away trip to Oxford then

A decent meeting all round. Sheffield seemed to struggle early on, particularly getting out of the gate and on a one line track with little chance for passing in the early heats they fell a long way behind very quickly. Woffinden found his feet for his second ride and was backed up superbly by Edwards, and the outside line coming into play was used well by Holder, Woffinden and Picko in later heats. All the hard work was undone when Chris Holder fell and the 10 point deficit was back, but Sheffield proved too strong in the later heats to pull it back. Super heat ended up a massive anti-climax with the exclusion of Milik, but the 3 riders gave it their all and still gave us a good race to end the meeting. I don't think any fans could go home disappointed after a meeting like that whichever team they were supporting, and a great match for a neutral. Observations I would make as a first time visitor. Viewing is very poor with the home straight being too low and the track lights seemed to be the perfect height to dazzle from there, and the 'terracing' on the bend could do with being a little higher to give a better view over the air fence. Track seemed very dry to me and I wondered if they had left it that way on the expectation of more rain during the day. Expected to see some water put down but it never happened. No mention from anybody of the bonus lap we received in one of the heats ? For some reason the last lap flag didn't come out when it should have done, leading to many on the terraces questioning themselves as to how many laps had been completed. Chequered finally came down after 5 laps, with an announcement that the result was taken after 4. All well and good as nothing changed anyway, but wouldn't have been so great if someone had crashed on lap 5 and done themselves some damage.

Currently named for the World Select : Freddie Lindgren, Tobiasz Musielak, Niels-Kristian Iversen, Rory Schlein, Simon Lambert, and Erik Riss.

Same at Sheffield. Last home fixture is 15th August. Not sure how the fixtures are worked out, but if a team is in a close battle to make the playoffs it seems a bit unfair to have your last 3 matches all away !!

Poor form ? Now you are definitely on the wind up. The arrival of Tai had seen them linking up really well and Kerr back on form. Not sure what you expect from a number 6, but his last 6 meetings for Sheffield were 5, 7, 5+1, 6, 6+2, 9+4.

Man U didn't choose not to take part in the FA Cup. They were instructed by the FA that they had to compete in the World Club Championship as this would help the English bid to host the 2006 World Cup. The tournament clashed with the FA Cup 3rd round so they had to withdraw, and the media put all the blame on the club at the time

And what about Doyle giving double middle fingers to the crowd when he was booed as he went up for his losers medal ?

I thought Kyle might have gone last winter, and in the first half of this season I still thought keeping him was the wrong decision. However, I don't know what inspired him, but he was immense in the last couple of months and justified his position. He ended the season with the 3rd highest number of bonus points in the league - what more can you ask of a number 2 ?

It's not 2 substances. I was intrigued as to what Benzoylecgonine was, so I googled it and it is a by-product of Cocaine use which is produced by the liver and is what they test urine for when screening for Cocaine.