Bagpuss

I bet they’ve got even smugger smirks now

Good question, you surely have to have the same number of heats from each venue for it to be fair over two legs?

Such a pity there was so little passing. One or two good tussles but pretty dull really.

And a bit more luck on the injury front for 2020.

Met Office app has rain arriving over the Foxhole at 11pm tomorrow.

Not necessarily. I can’t believe any team would become complacent in the first meeting of a two legged tie, you just have to keep at it for every heat. But sometimes speedway riders aren’t the cleverest.

I don’t think they got complacent, they just failed to adapt to the changing conditions and lost the ability to gate.

If they met up and had a pint and a chat it might save us a lot of the garbage on here.

Poole have it sorted already, wouldn’t be surprised if they win the second leg too.

I think Hawkins is getting a raw deal here, makes perfect sense to get Sarjeant and Heeps’ rides done as early as possible and for Allen’s last three rides to be against reserves. Don’t think that was at all responsible for the collapse.

Oh Ipswich......

Amateur hour. At least if you are going to be a team of waifs and strays then make sure none of your riders Kevlars resemble those if another team. Especially in a live Play Off meeting

Impossible to say really, you would imagine it didn’t help but only those in the thick of the pits action could possibly know. I think the right team manager can motivate riders and squeeze extra out of a team just as Rob Lyon used to, people questioned last year if Dale could do the same and results would suggest he did but who knows.

Undecided about him, my main concern is how top heavy we’d be with him and Lambert. If the correct balance could be achieved with both then probably a yes.

Not sure what Lynn’s track is like makes too much difference really, it certainly didn’t last season when we finished well clear at the top of the table. The team is full of experienced riders who have been round the block and have and do ride all sorts of tracks in our leagues and others. I just think collectively the whole team has dropped a level this year, maybe they overachieved last season. If you say for the sake of argument that from last year Cook replaced Iversen, Kerr replaced Proctor and Porsing replaced Lambert then on paper it doesn’t look too much different in terms of strength but I bet every single rider has been worse this season than themselves or their equivalent from last season. It’s easy to get into a habit away from home as a speedway team, last year it was a winning one whereas this year from the opening night hiding at the Foxhole it’s been a pattern of disappointment. It needs to be rectified for 2020.

Ah, my apologies. Will teach me to skim read in future!

Their last away match was at Lynn where they won 51-39.

Spot on. After having comfortably the best away record last year we now have the worst, riders like Proctor and Jorgensen unfortunately fell off the cliff edge with their away form but they weren’t the only ones, collectively we haven’t been good enough on the road and even adding Cook did little to improve things. I would keep Lambert, MPT and Riss for definite then build round that. Wright is a great shout for second heat leader and Nicol & Pickering seem to appeal to several people to inject some freshness into the side. Maybe Jordan Stewart? Or somebody completely new to the UK, plenty of talented riders who competed in the Under 21 competitions this year.

Your first line stated that the rule book should be adhered to which I took as meaning he should ride for Eastie? But it won’t be a mathematically dead rubber whatever happens tomorrow night. The fact is that neither Eastbourne or Brum can affect the Championship Play Offs on Saturday night.

Do they? Not so sure myself. This ‘us versus them’ attitude does speedway no good at all, speedway won’t get any better until everyone pulls in the same direction. This decision is based on common sense, yes we can criticise why the situation has come to this point but now it has this decision is by far the most sensible. And it would be if Eastbourne were in a Play Off match the same night as Ipswich were racing a dead rubber meeting on a Premiership race night and Lawson rode for the Eagles.

#commonsense

I didn’t say your meeting is irrelevant, I was responding to the claim that it’s all about the Premiership. I’m saying that if your meeting was a Play Off tie and Ipswich’s was a dead rubber on a Thursday night then common sense would be for Lawson to ride for Eastbourne.

Is it not common sense for him to ride in a meaningful fixture rather than a dead rubber? And that would apply if it was the other way round, which leagues the meetings are in is irrelevant.

Going back to that era you could also include Chris Mills and Kevin Doolan.

We’ve just had two dead rubber matches at Lynn last week and I can honestly say that if Cook or Riss were needed elsewhere for a meaningful fixture I’d have accepted that completely.