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The slight difference here being that when this fixture was announced none of the missing Oxford riders would have been expected to be missing. the SGP2 qualifier date has been moved twice, Gusts wasn’t in the team and realistically the expectation would not have been that Knudsen would be riding in the Polish top tier. The argument on whether once these were known could the fixture be rearranged is a more complex one but the issue with that being things like the cost of the things that putting a meeting on requires would all have been booked and paid for, sadly speedway clubs in this country can’t afford to take the hit on those. As it was Oxford we’re still competitive albeit without the backing to Masters required to ever really challenge. Would a full Oxford team have done much better? I’m not so sure, they got 15 from Gusts and McDermid’s replacements which would have taken a fair effort from two Armadale debutants, Scott was only beaten by Palovaara x2, Palm Toft and Thomson x2 so not sure Killeen would have done much more and the same for Knudsen as Morley was beaten by Palovaara x2, Sedgmen and Thomson

Not a choice, Polish fixtures take priority on Fridays so as soon as his Polish club called him in that’s that annoyingly.

How? Boughen wasn’t due in heat 14

With the notice given, Oskars average and the fact in general may riders just don’t want guest bookings certainly not ones that involve a drive to Plymouth come up with a solution?

But the riders didn’t stop immediately when they did as there were no flags raised from the infield, Hume doesn’t come off the gas till Thomson is past him look when he outs his hand up and while I wouldn’t die on the hill of it being the same with Sedgy and Cook, it looked the same as Cook had locked up slightly.

Edinburgh can only use a 2pt championship rider or an NDL rider with no previous Championship average (or not over 2.00) for Max, Connor’s Championship average is 3.33

What decision do you feel he got wrong? If you mean Heat 1 and putting the red light on after Sedgy moved, having watched the replay a few times he did Berwick a favour the Monarchs were on a 4-2 when the riders noticed the red light

I think you are underestimating the Bandits slightly, Kemp Is flying and is a top 15 guy in the league now imo Wood will pinch points off more than Marson if we aren’t gating sharp against him and Hume knows his way round Armadale. So if Kildemand gets to grip early and Hagon/Smith chip in with a few it won’t take much for Berwick to be right in it

The home team has to declare their line-up prior to the away team so either way for Friday at least Dickson could always line-up Kemp against Flint

Didn’t Jones also take a fairly hefty knock and as the 5th average member of the team it meant an r/r facility that weakened the team significantly for a bit then the ill feted Eric Carillo deal

I would actually disagree on that front, for the Star to survive it needs to cater for the older generation as they are the only people that pay for print media these days. A magazine that caters for the younger an generation won’t sell as the younger generation don’t buy magazines/newspapers and I would imagine (although don’t have the stats to prove it) also are on the lower end of paying for media content that is online behind paywalls

Out of interest what do you find unfair about sky’s pricing? Are they charging significantly more for TNT sports than others?

Not unusually there’s nothing concrete in the SCB regs for the exact scenario but this is mentioned as part of another blurb ‘Any rider not eligible for the British Development Leagues, with an established average, cannot drop below 3.00 in the Premiership or Championship Leagues at any time during the season.’ However I can’t find any mention of if this is being retroactively applied to the end of last season averages

Fair enough hadn’t looked at the BSPL site

Wouldn’t that be 30th May? Currently in the Tigers schedule as for KO Cup and tbc in Monarchs schedule

I would say the opposite really Personally I think Poole should be hammered for this, why even accept the invitation (or if never formally done so say you would) allowing press releases and fixture planning etc to be carried out then pull out, it is a nonsense! The viability of accepting the meetings should have been looked into prior to doing so rather than months later once everything else was in place as you now have another club and fans in Sheffield impacted also. I’ve never understood the Poole bashing before as I’ve thought of them as the gold standard, a tidy and full stadium every week and levels of success that would be the envy of most clubs in any sport let alone speedway but I can now see the self interest and quite frankly f you attitude to everyone else in the sport others talk about.

I wasn’t ignoring it the original post I replied to had said he was poor at Armadale I was correcting that as he did a decent job around the Dale.

4.35 ave at Armadale last season hardly poor fir a guy that was signed on a sub 3 average

Sure that happened the other year when the Monarchs brought Hook and Fredriksen back for a second season both were on a 4.00 having failed to achieve that the year before but the Monarchs were blocked from having Lasse start the season at reserve as he had had the higher average of the two (3.5 to 2.7 or something like that) the season before despite them starting the next season on the same average and there being nothing in the rule book to state this had to be the case.

Only time will tell but I think those taking glee at Poole’s lineup and predicting doom will be disappointed come season’s end as while there are some good looking teams I don’t see any better than the Pirates currently.

I still rate Poole as the team to beat, look at the team that starts this season compared to start of last Lawson, Z Cook, Thomsen back Kerr for B Cook at Championship level isn’t much different imo, yes Cook will kick on and have a great few years but at this level Kerr will be up there with the best 2nd heatleaders. Rowe for Brennan, not sure anyone expected Tom to have quite as good a year as he did last, I don’t think Anders will repeat that but I reckon he’ll be a 8 point rider. Starke for Hagon, Hagon a bit stronger but he was being carried by season end, Starke you’d expect to get back to 4 or 4.5 AN Other for Perry, whoever it is can’t really score less than Max did so let’s say it is a Cairns for Foord swap in reality, Cairns expectation might need tempered from those thinking he is the next Zmarzlik, Briggs, Rickardsson etc but with the backing and kit he has he’ll average 4.5/5 in the championship at a canter. if I was a Poole fan I’d have no reason to panic and fans of other teams predicting their demise I think is just wishful thinking.

Wood could surprise a few he was a lot faster and controlled last season, finished the season with a higher NDL average than the likes of Harrison, Pijper, Hodder, Spencer and Perry. Also scored 3+1 beating both Mulford and Trigger when guesting for Edinburgh at Redcar. Tike will tell if he can do it consistently at Championship level but I’d say he’s on a par with most of the two pointers signed so far.

Totally agree, let’s remember that speedway is an entertainment sport first and foremost and you want to see the better riders in meetings like this, with zero insult meant to Jack Smith or James Pearson would people rather see them in the meeting or Anders Rowe? I know I much prefer all teams to be as strong as possible…… albeit as a Monarchs fan that may change if Glasgow win this evening then I’ll be calling them all the cheats under the sun and saying how ridiculous the decision was to allow Anders to ride :-):-)

The averages are the other way round, you get a 5% uplift at home not away so it is 6.92 home and 6.59 away for Nicolai and 7.23 home and 6.89 away for Ben

Apart from rain offs the Monarchs have raced every Friday night bar one (when it was an academy fixture) since the 26th April so no long breaks in fixtures here