szkocjasid

1) is there anything wrong with that? 2) I'd rather be champions, than considered the best team (but not champions)

Look at the 4 new riders to the Championship in 2022. Fredriksen, Hook, Pearson & Congreve. None of them reached the minimum 4.00 ave for foreigners. Was signing these riders really better than keeping the RS system going? You could argue only Knudsen (on a 5.00) for Berwick was worth signing!

I have to say there is far too much "gardening" at the start for me these days. I was at Berwick for a NDL match on Saturday & even a junior in his first NDL match has already learnt / been taught to get off his bike & dig for ages. Heck even when Mildenhall had to go to the tapes for an easy 5-0 in heat 13, the both dug a little at the start, not for a long time but seemed unnecessary as they didn't have any opponents! I also feel video companies do the sport no favours by showing all the gardening in the one-off heats they show on social media. You'd think they'd want to show the best (the racing) of speedway and not the worst (time wasting).

We say that every year though. In the last two season the gap between fixtures for some teams seems even worse!

I suppose in Berwick's defence it wasn't like they had an obvious non-scoring reserve to replace. Weakest rider throughout the year as been on a 4.00 ave (ish). Probably also don't want to give Harrison enough matches to get an average!

Still wouldn't solve the problem of the league being decided by a team losing their weakest rider & strengthening up with the "next Dan Bewley" - not that you can solve that problem, can't tell a team not to pick a good guest! Actually you can solve the problem - don't have play-offs!

Why announce a 5 year plan then? They keep doing it also!

That's why I said 2 or 4 points, while Pijper may or may not have beaten Harrison, I'm sure he would have beaten Warren! I was very impressed with Harrison, just needs some coaching from Chris Harris about riding the deep outside & he'll be unstoppable! He's a must signing for the Bullets on a 3.00 ave for next season!

1) to make it cheaper so the likes of Eastbourne or Workington would join? 2) to spread the top riders around so the likes of Birmingham & Newcastle being far weaker doesn't happen again? 3) to help the best NL riders step up? 4) to have a bigger gap between Prem & Champ and a smaller gap between Champ & NL? 5) to encourage clubs like Leicester, Poole & Glasgow to step up? Tbh a lower points limit isn't needed so much for next season if the Champ are missing 2 more teams, meaning the top riders could get spread round more evenly!

As soon as Brits clinched 3rd in heat 18, I was hoping Edwards would get a shot in heat 19 at least!

I feel my point was proved correct last night. Pijper, as expected, couldn't beat Edwards in heat 8. Having Rathbone in that heat likely wouldn't have cost them any points (Rathbone looked stronger than Muff). But Pijper would have been favourite to win heat 12, so Berwick could have added an extra 2 or 4 points onto their first leg lead!

That's the point I was making, why put r/r at 2? Jenkins may get an almost guaranteed win in heat 8, but that was never gonna be enough for Oxford to beat Leicester over 2 legs! They needed him to take as many points off the 3 heat leaders to give Oxford a chance to progress imo

I suppose that's because no riders moved out if the RS criteria, they just dropped the RS rule (after 1 year of their 5 year plan)!

The rolling aves are from the last 3 seasons, 19,21,22. So anyone with an average from 2018 wouldn't use those figures for a rolling ave, would need to race 3 home & 3 away to gain a new ave.

When the RS rules were introduced, it was stated when a rider was no longer a "rising star" he would get a 25% reduction on his ave (to help them get a team place after improving enough to no longer qualify).

Lambert's 7.81 ave (7.61 with reduction) is based on his last 20 matches. If he rides against Lynn his final ave will then be based on his last 9 matches from 2019 & the Lynn fixture. Could change a lot!

Don't see it happening in the Prem or the NL tbh. Half expecting the jubilee league to be abandoned to!

Surely it won't become a one-off final again due to lack of dates? One thing I will say, ignoring this competition since August & racing the final in October just suggests the clubs have no interest / feel this is not an important competition! If the clubs appear to act like that, it's a terrible way to entice fans to come out on a potentially cold & wet October evening!

That happened before the play-off era if the Champions won with meetings in hand. But they still completed their fixtures. But I do agree it looks stupid completing league matches after the play-offs, not that I'm suggesting the matches shouldn't be run - just make sure the league is completed first!

Gotcha, I thought you meant 39 plus RS, not 39 total. Yes that would be weaker, but don't see the limit being that low!

Don't agree that's diluting the product, teams should average out at 42, so 39 + RS is no weaker than this year?

I don't know if the rule change will do much good, riders like Woffinden, Pedersen, Madsen, Zmarzlik, Dudek, Janowski, Lindgren, Vaculik etc chose not to ride in GB long before the Extraliga+1 rule was made. Not worth giving up priority on Thursday's for the sake of 2 top riders (Bewley & Lambert) potentially coming back!

Clubs couldn't organise the league cup final till October this year, despite the qualifiers being known since May! How are they gonna cope with postponements due to Extraliga matches on a Thursday?

Do we know why 3 Armadale riders were missing? I notice they were allowed r/r & unattached guests but Belle Vue weren't! Should Belle Vue have been allowed an unattached 3.00 rider for Ablitt? Not that it would have made much difference!

What I don't like about the riding order is Kim Nilsson deserves his place more than 8 riders who have a better ranking via his GP Challenge win, but of he's ever level on countback in the series, he'll be ranked lower!