Islander15

Congrats to Hawks who is the winner and was the last person to pick a team! 1. Hawks 1975 53.84 2. Islander15 53.56 3. Iron Scorpion 52.32 4. Sings4Speedway 50.93 5. DJC 50.86 6. Reginaldspeed 50.80 7. Technik 50.58 8. Flipper11 50.27 9. Hunters 49.56 10. Bloom89 48.48 11. Potteringaround 48.29 12. Secsy1 45.67 A lot of people chose Atkins or Freeman whose averages didn’t change due to injury.

At least some some others gave a sensible answer.

To those who have watched him at Berwick, is he ready yet?

Not a bad team. Gilkes could be the league’s top rider (Bickley will have something to say about that though!). Atkins in on a false average and Andrews is prolific at home. Those 3 should get them the home win alone most weeks. Best of luck to Extance coming back and he’s always been a rider I enjoyed watching. The might find it a bit tougher at the bottom end though as I’m not sure how good Meadows will perform which puts some pressure on young Trigger. Hopefully they can find a proper number 2 to give those two a season at reserve but I have a feeling they might be under the points limit.

Extance returning would be interesting. Hopefully he can stay fit this time!

Of the new 3.00 riders, I can see Perry being the best.

You’d think there needs to be a rule adjustment as a Prem no. 8 is unlikely to get many rides, if any. But with Mulford already signed up, it’s not fair to block him from riding NL when he’s only done 1 season and still has things to learn.

Blast from the past! Best of luck on his return.

Will the Thompsons want to do NL again?

I forgot to add ‘whichever is highest’. Morley will be 9+ but for some rule change they’ve not told us about.

As Aarnio has been signed on his home form, I’ve had a look at his home scores in 2021 in all comps and he got 69+4 from 32 rides which is an 8.62 average and 9.12 with bonus points. Very impressive! His only poor meeting was in his opener against Leicester in the KOC when he scored 3 from 3. But that was Leicester. His other meetings were against Eastbourne, Newcastle (without Barker), Edinburgh, Berwick, Kent (without Batch) & Birmingham. So the glaring point there is that he missed meetings against most of the top teams, which would artificially inflate his average. Added to that fact he only rode 7 of Scunny’s 13 home meetings, so he needs to have overcome his visa and other problems and actually race to score big home points!

Yep and he’s already getting pressured by the boss to improve his away scores. Someone said on here that it felt like he was always 1 or 2 more bad meetings from the axe this season, and it felt like that for me too. He only produced the goods when he knew he absolutely had to. Given that you start team building with a clean slate, it seems a strange choice to bring him back.

There was a rule that if you’d ever achieved an average above 4.00 in the second tier then you couldn’t double up. If memory serves me right, it stopped Tony Atkin & Jon Armstrong getting short second tier roles. But you seem right about Clegg so they must’ve formalised that rule change now!

It’s his latest NL average that you use, so 9.17 for Morley. Which tbf is more indicative of his abilities b

Good to see more teams and importantly more fixtures to give the riders and fans a better and more consistent campaign.

Looks like the team to beat! The McGurks are only going one way after a great debut season! There’s been some criticism for Smith in this thread, but if he can ride anywhere well it’s the NSS and he’s often had stagnated season so it’ll benefit him to start at the same time as everyone else at a club he knows. Also remember it’s still a weakened NL compared to pre-Covid, it’s just stronger than last season! JPB has had a season to get dialled back in and his average will surely only go up, the question is how much will he push on. Then of the 3 newbies, 2 of them are 2 of the best we have in that age group. Ablitt has been pushed around a bit for his young age so hopefully he can settle down this season and just maintaining his average at a new track would show improvement imo but come the business end of the season and he’ll know the fastest way around. Freeman has always impressed me and he did way over 4 meetings last season so he must have a real average now, but we’re being kept in the dark. Then there’s the new kid Hodder, but with a solid team and always potentially the league’s best reserve beside him there’ll be no pressure whatsoever.

The teams are upto date now that they are confirmed. However the BSPL still haven't released the final season averages, so I can only work off the most recently published edition at present.

Will you be live streaming home meetings? And a reduced price delayed video that you can watch at your leisure would be a good addition too. Realistically Scunny fans that are available on a Friday night will be there, but if you have a prior arrangement then watching a recording is the next best thing.

Blair is back. Is the plan to give him a Bandits ride in 2023?

Which team is easy to get tickets for?

As long as the fixtures aren’t all over the place like they were this season. The fans and riders need some consistency to actually get into the campaign. And they should bring back the pairs, fours & NLRC to add something different and some additional meetings to what will inevitably be a short league season again.

If Tero turns up.

You could swap Tero & Lambo for Auty and someone like Shanes, Morris or a new 5.00 rider. If Rob is all about home wins then getting Auty in as a third heat leader, and therefore less pressure, will only help that. Whilst Shanes or Morris are decent young riders too and would realistically sign.

Yes a good guess. A shame really as it has the makings of a decent team but Aarnio is a poor choice as third heat leader.

That doesn’t include October meetings and he had away meetings against Leicester & Kent.