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Not really, still stops a club picking 2 or 3 of the top riders in the league & sharing them out. Will this ruling stop the top riders asking for more money than clubs can afford? Once the 8+ riders get signed & spots fill up, the remaining ones will know it's sign for a "leftover" club or miss out, less options than normal.

I don't understand why they'd not count the last 2 fixtures. I'm guessing it's to stop riders trying to drop their averages once the play-offs start? But even if the matches took place before the play-offs, neither club could make the top 4. So what difference would it make if they rode before or after the play-offs? This is just an assumption obviously

Richard Lawson, Chris Harris, Sam Masters, Dan Thompson & Cooper Rushen.

Is there a reason Jake Allen is on people's lists? Didn't have a great season for Scunthorpe, is he a Redcar track specialist? Mind you, riders having a disappointing season & lowering their averages can help them find a team spot, such is Speedway. Kind of the reason I think MPT would be a good signing on a track that suits his style (i.e not Armadale).

Sounds a poor excuse, especially for a professional sportsman. Shouldn't he want to go out to show his appreciation of the fans? Anyway if someone underperforms in a final they still deserve a silver medal.

Not really sure about Douglas as a number one. Rode at 3 all year for Leicester, so avoided the tough heat 13 (obviously rode in heat 15s). His scores at Lynn look pretty decent though, although that was against a team without top end strength. Mind you, it would still give Lynn a stronger number one than their 2025 side, if they can keep the same strength in depth, could work out.

The biggest positive of getting rid of the doubling up / limiting it would be to allow clubs to ride any night of the week. For example Poole would be more likely to step up if they could race Prem on a Wednesday. I don't see a big advantage of trying to limit double uppers if the Prem & Champ race on separate nights.

If there's going to be a lack of meetings in the Prem next season, could this competition make a comeback? Even as a one-off?

looks a very good team

Doesn't matter how a team qualifies, wouldn't have been wrong if Poole won imo. I am however delighted Redcar won. Agree that whoever signs Rushen will be massive favourites for the league in 2026.

Well done Redcar. Who said Bears had thrown the towel in by not having a guest lol!

8+3 scored from r/r!

Home & away twice is 16 meetings. Add in a KOC, play-offs for top 2? Then each team enters the NL/NT.

There's no guarantee a guest would score more than r/r,.so it doesn't mean Redcar have given up on the tie. As King & Edwards can take an extra ride, no point giving a 5 pointer, who may be no better than Mulford a guest booking. Mind you, even with the best guest possible can't see Poole failing to hit 50 points.

Scunthorpe did try some "new" things last season, Declan Kennedy new to British Speedway, Zaine Kennedy & Steve Worrall returning after a long time away, Luke Harrison was only on his 2nd season. So 3 regular returnees isn't a great many. Ironically one of the riders dropped, which many fans were happy to see, MPT - rode really well as an away rider for Edinburgh. On a lower average he'd be a target to improve home form. I wouldn't bring back Simon Lambert, you could tell he was trying, but didn't have the speed anymore. Time to move on.

While Scunthorpe have had a couple of poor seasons, before that they were play-off qualifiers. So it's not like they've always been near the bottom. Scunthorpe did have a big name rider, Ryan Douglas, but when he went up to the Prem found it hard to find a top replacement. Similar to Edinburgh when Pickering stepped up. Poole didn't replace Ben Cook or Tom Brennan with similar standard of riders, maybe because there's not many top heat leaders to go round, luckily for them I don't see Richard Lawson moving up full time. Scunthorpe also had their own, even more successful Cairns in Luke Harrison, unfortunately sounds like he's going to be moving on.

But I still don't understand why they'd get rid of the RS system to save money. If they could lower the points limit so a number one is replaced by a 4-5 point rider, but keep a RS, that would make more sense to me!

These teams suggested if there's a 36 point limit look pretty decent to me. Maybe could make for a more exciting league if there's more riders of a similar ability competing.

If they wanted to lower the cost, wouldn't adding a 2nd "rising star" be more beneficial than removing the system completely?

What would be the reason for a 36 point limit? If there's less clubs then no reason to lower the limit. Unless it's to encourage Champ clubs to step up / Northampton to join in?

I think Vuolas' away from, especially last year looks bad because he was so good at home. Look at it another way, first season over here for a foreign rider, never got a spell at reserve, if he averaged 5.00 (6 at home, 4 away) fans would probably have looked on that as a great debut season, but because his home average was more than double his away (4 points greater) taken out on context, it looks like a rider who can only ride his home track. This year can't have expected him to get any better at home, but upping his away ave, while moving from a second strong to heat leader position, is a step in the right direction. Of course if Workington want to challenge for trophies in 2026, then they'll be looking for Vuolas to improve his away form (if he's back) as it'll be his 3rd season, seems a fair time to expect more then.

Looking at the stats alone for Voulas 2024 home 8.74 (9.16) away 4.00 (4.32) 2025 home 8.55 (9.27) away 4.71 (5.24) Overall ave went up from 6.40 (6.77) to 6.68 (7.32).

If the top 9 averaged riders get shared amongst the 9 Champ clubs, that's not watering down the league at all (unless multiple 8+ riders were planning to return).

So after comments of drop Vuolas, sign Grahn & needing a stronger no 1, how about? Kyle Howarth (7.92) Troy Batchelor (6.80) Jye Etheridge (5.66) Jacob Hook (5.63) Tate Zischke (5.43) Jonatan Grahn (5.30) Ben Trigger (3.26) Total 40.00

Really? To me it's a stronger team than this years, in what will be a weaker league, more than half the teams are above the current 40 point limit. Out of curiosity, do you think this years Workington team was woeful?