jbell1995

Fresh from Tuesday night's victory over the Berwick Bandits, the Gladiators head north to Workington looking to overturn a 4 point deficit for the aggregate bonus point. Plenty of Plymouth fans travelling up for this one I believe. Looking at the two teams on paper, as with most meetings, Plymouth's reserves are going to be important here, along with the current good form of Dan Thompson and Kyle Newman was back to his best on Tuesday night as well. Workington with an impressive start to the season and with Cook and Batchelor (who's welcome at Plymouth any time after his two efforts guesting these past two weeks, what a professional!) they'll be a tough side to beat. Team wise, we know Connor Bailey is guesting for Worky in place of Tate Zischke. For the Gladiators... well two guests are required? Covatti and Barker need replacing... with no prior knowledge and just going off my own research about past results and who fits average wise, I'd suggest Kyle Howarth might be a good call to replace Covatti if he's around and willing to guest. Jake Allen, Jason Edwards, Michael Palm Toft, Leon Flint or Paco Castagna might also be reasonable shouts to replace Ben Barker.

Challenging night for everyone down at the Coliseum from the team at Gladiators TV right through to the riders on track. As stressed on the stream at the start, that weather right before the meeting caught everybody out. Forecast only changed at 4pm and the showers pre-meeting really did make those early heats tricky. Credit must go to both sets of riders, managers, the referee and the track staff who at no point complained about the situation and instead were all proactive in doing everything possible to get the meeting to reach its conclusion but once we got through heats 7+8, thankfully the weather calmed down. As mentioned in the Plymouth thread, when it rains it pours for the Gladiators in recent times. Covatti not in team colours, Dan with Covid and Ben suffering a nasty clash with the fence on the backstraight after lifting off bend 2. Fingers crossed it’s nothing too serious and he can come back 100% when he’s ready. Spirited effort from the team, Troy Batchelor with a professional guest appearance, Kyle Newman and Alfie Bowtell with good nights too but ultimately Charles Wright was a class above and with the help of Jason Edwards, the Bears proved too strong on the night. Still early days in the Gladiators season but they need to get that aggregate point next week against Berwick to really propel themselves into the mix.

I’m merely paraphrasing from Dan’s social media post earlier today

Dan Thompson suspended for 7 days for failing to attend tonight’s Premiership fixture between Ipswich and Birmingham… despite withdrawing from yesterday’s U21’s final on medical grounds, testing positive this morning for COVID and being able to give evidence of that positive test with a sick note from his doctor… wow

Of course let’s not forget also there’s the question mark of Dan Thompson’s health after withdrawing from the Under 21’s final yesterday through illness Edited at 12:21 - No longer a question mark, he has Covid

It would appear from a scoresheet on AMD Krško on Facebook that Covatti scored 8pts from 5 riders (3,2,2,0,1) yesterday and just missed out on a spot in the semi-finals. Positive news towards him riding for Plymouth tomorrow

Interesting one this, no fewer than 3 former Gladiators coming to town for the Bears (Edwards, Gilkes and Trigger). Interesting to see what they do without King? Gladiators will be anxiously waiting to find out news on Covatti. Should be a good one

PLYMOUTH: Nico Covatti R/R, Alfie Bowtell, Dan Thompson, Jason Garrad, Ben Barker, Joe Thompson, Jacob Hook.POOLE: Richard Lawson, Sam Hagon, Zach Cook, Tom Brennan, Ben Cook, Tobias Thomsen, Max Perry.

Plymouth have just posted on Facebook with a weather radar showing the biblical conditions that are sweeping in tonight with the caption: Gladiators beaten by the weather! Rearranged date TBC

Credit where credit is due, Poole have acted swiftly to prevent bad PR and running the risk of a late decision. On balance, with all the forecasts available and I’d imagine the track curator will have a more sophisticated weather system than a mobile phone app, it’s the right call and well done to both clubs for facilitating such a swift rearrangement on Friday

Covatti will be there

Paco goes well around the Colosseum too, the Bar Bandits enjoy watching Paco so he’ll get a warm reception. Fingers crossed our championship campaign can get started tomorrow evening!!

Really not sure continuing the meeting without red trackside lights is a good look for the sport. Doesn't sit right with me that, not saying anyone is to blame but safety must be paramount and only using the tower exclusion lights is dangerous particularly for flag marshals away from the home straight

Well the great escape couldn’t be pulled off but that was a really positive night for Plymouth Speedway. Good crowd, track in good shape and there was some very good racing particularly early in the evening and a good team performance from the Gladiators. Everyone contributed to the win. Jacob Hook putting in a lot of laps after heat 15 too to learn more about the track. There’s a real togetherness about this group which is pretty exciting. Get the No. 1 position sorted and this team might just make a few people look silly this season

I’m happy to do it again Fozzie, I did it at Birmingham away last season for the Glads

Looks like R/R at #1 for the Gladiator's. Makes perfect sense given the riders could use every bit of track time available to them and it’s unnecessary to bring a guest down given the expenses that would be involved. Will be good to see the team in action tomorrow after a really, really promising night at Oxford on Wednesday

Bends 3+4 have been widened and banked, home straight has been widened as a result I think

It is, club confirmed on social media at the start of the week, tapes up at 7pm tomorrow

Anyone fancy us to overturn this huge deficit? More to the point, anyone know who’s at #1 for the Gladiators tomorrow? Looking forward to seeing how the new track works out tomorrow evening in the company of my fellow Gladiator supporters and the Bar Bandits on Bend 2

What a performance from the Gladiators last night. This will be a bit of a shock to those who haven’t given the team a chance this season as you’d think this side are only going to get stronger as the season progresses once the No. 1 position is sorted. I’m used to poor refereeing decisions in football but it’s a real sour taste in the mouth this morning when it would appear Thompson did get past Nicholls on the line for what would’ve been a 45-45 draw and then a superheat

Sadly because it fits an agenda used by a minority of the people on this platform. Sadly, this minority won't be happy until they see another club fold and close, without realising the knock on effect of such a decision. It would leave an entire region, not just a city/town - the whole of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Gloucestershire without a team. Just let that sink in for a minute? Millions of people without a team to support, they'd rather that happened than see the Gladiators make a good go at things. I really feel for Mark, he's constantly getting battered from all sides (including by riders from other clubs!) despite doing what he can with what he's got. People are more than entitled to their views I get that, hence why we are on a public forum discussing it however most of the time, it's not constructive, it's not helpful and it's hurtful what people say about the Gladiators.... However, it's us against the world and we're going to embrace that!! "No one likes us, we don't care... We are Plymouth..."

Excellent reply Arthur haha

Meeting called off. Unbelievable, fans already travelling. Very poor. Clear with the weather forecast this was always going to happen!! Bang out of order… Oh wait… Plymouth were away? Oh it won’t fit the agenda of most on here, I’ll keep quiet then

I’ve edited it to save confusion. I would argue that it clearly states in the original post this is the fixture on Friday at Scunny and I was clearly mentioning the home fixture in devon

Meh, might as well just make it one big thread haha.