Islander15

National Trophy finalists! It's a long wait until you find out your opponents though.

Interesting to put your best 2 riders, on paper, together.

Spooner has been useful this season, just from Kent's point of view he not a 15 year old with great prospects (Rowe) or ready to be the senior reserve (Andrews). Spooner knew he was initially in for Rowe until Rowe turned 15 and it was upto Spooner to impress. Based on his multiple Warriors guest appearances and his Lakeside and Eastbourne team spots numerous teams have thought he's done well.

Kent seem unhappy again that another club is using Spooner.

You've all got your answer. Knight is back alongside Spooner! So presumably the hold up was due to Lakeside wanting Spooner for a weekend?? It also meant that Brennan stayed at reserve for as long as possible.

Lewis Kerr and whoever the new number 7 is will cover that ruling.

All this talk of Nielsen, is he even fit?

Long-term I think he's better than those 2 but scores now suggest otherwise. Locke's averaging 1.50 this season compared to Laurence on 3.04 & Couzins on 2.53. Of course Lakeside have a better home track advantage than King's Lynn to help push that figure up though.

Connor Locke signed.

Afternoon meetings are poorer anywhere imo, I doubt it's a Lakeside issue. Whilst Lakeside's top heavy and pretty unbalanced team is going to inevitably make processional racing. Not many riders will beat Morley, Zach or Hurry but then lots of teams bottom 3 riders are better than Couzins, Spooner & Laurence, but even if the Hammers' trio gate then you're talking about weaker opposition riders who won't be good at passing anyway! But most of the moans seem to be from Claret73, who moans at everything and hasnt even gone in the flesh.

He's not, that's the thing.

So Cook got his own way, yet calls other promoters 'idiots'. Right...

It's not just a heat leader you lose in Auty though, it's entertainment at the EWR. That needs replacing though and someone like Hansen has never struck me as entertaining.

As Dandelion says it's £10 per point plus expenses. Whilst I agree that £10 is too low for current times, the rules say £10 maximum so Cook & Tatum should pay £10 maximum until they advocate the rules get changed at the AGM.

NL riders progress quickly. Look at Birmingham last year and using rolling averages Bacon and Hume would've gone to reserve (having started on 4.24 and 3.79) yet they were doing better than Smith & JPB last year. Tbh there's positives and negatives to both methods. The important thing imo is 3.00 riders get new averages quickly and they've solved that problem now.

Or the Warriors can fix their bottom end with Davey Watt on his current Premiership 3.something average 😉

Looks like it could get called off in the morning again.

Exactly. But is not just too low, it's illegitimate. Having said that, when was the last time a 7 point rider hit a maximum on his home debut at any level?

What did Cook say? It was in the programme wasn't it?

Any Brummies fans' thoughts on this one?

RTD replaces Greaves (who crashed last night).

6.35 is a bit better than 'half ok'... Having a small number of meetings before averages change on the NL though is good because it stops the super reserves (Brennan, Bickley etc) from being there for half a season like happened in the past. It'll soon even itself out in the Eastbourne team and Bates isn't much better than Powell anyway, look at their starting averages.

Lakeside are using the terminology of 'guest' as well now. But guests assume the average of the rider they're replacing, so bringing in Spooner for Hunter as a 'guest' is irrelevant.

This afternoon the Warriors make the trip to Derbyshire. Buxton haven't confirmed their team but presumably they are as follows. 1. Max Clegg 2. Ben Basford 3. Shelby Rutherford 4. Matt Williamson 5. Tom Woolley 6. Carl Basford 7. Lee Geary Warriors 1. Ben Wilson 2. Tyler Govier R/R 3. James Cockle 4. Chris Widman 5. Nathan Greaves 6. Jamie Sealey 7. Ryan MacDonald (G) Warriors can take this one 👍🏻

Simon Lambert has signed for KL, so that isn't where Knight is heading.