cyclone

Agree the sickly Deek was the man who turned the tide in Monarchs favour. You're being a bit disrespectful to write Worky off before they have ridden a match in the Group

Given Deek's GSA of 4.51, the choice of PL guests were fairly restricted. Although the Danes, Lykke, Barrett, & Nielsen were eligible, I would guess they were back home in Denmark as they do not have scheduled PL fixtures for a while.. Konopka was ineligible as he had already guested for Newcastle here last Saturday. That left Luke Bowen, Oliver Greenwood,Tom Perry, Joe Jacobs, and Simon Lambert from the PL, and possibly Ben Morley, James Sarjeant, Nathan Greaves, & Max Clegg from the NL. How many were willing and able to travel to Armadale at short notice is another matter. So for Max Clegg to accept the booking, we should be grateful for his commitment. Monarchs struggled to get into their stride early on, and despite the impressive performance of Doolan, and useful contributions of Edberg & Wethers, the remaining Bandits were poor. Bandits will probably pick up the three match points at Shielfield today, so expect this section to go down to the wire, with all three teams giving little away at home.

Your memory is letting you down.

Quiet correct, we do not stoop to such dubious tactics - hopefully the ref will stop this start line chicanery by the Berwick track staff on Saturday

There's also the added attraction of watching the speccy start marshall & his assistant selectively grading the gates to relieve the boredom

Monarchs were there for the taking last night and had Robson been ok , they would have probably won. Re Stevie Worrall, his plight looked the worse in the ht3 carnage with his own bike slamming into him after he hit the air fence. I was surprised he appeared unscathed, but I think his horrific crash unsurprisingly affected his subsequent performance.

Teams as per Edinburgh website:- SCOTWASTE MONARCHS; Craig Cook, Justin Sedgmen, Max Fricke, Stevie Worrall, Sam Masters, Aaron Fox, Derek Sneddon (capt.) GLASGOW TIGERS: Victor Palovaara, Theo Pijper (capt.), Kevin Wolbert, Tero Aarnio, Rusty Harrison, Kasper Lykke, Jan Graversen (guest). This is the second match on Friday, which Tigers fans, if they wish can gain entry to this match only (see Monarchs website for details). The Buckfast Boys have noticeably improved recently and this could turn out to be a close run affair. Tigers Swedish signing, U-21 International Victor Palovaara will hopefully make his Armadale debut, but expect him to be (cough) "unavailable" for Sunday's return

At Trashfield on Sunday.

Aye, but you rely on a Scottish born & based Promoter, and your landlords ,Berwick Rangers F.C., exist by playing in Scottish League 2.

Re scrapping the Edinburgh fixture, I wonder what the Workington Promotion will do re the admission ticket for the original postponed fixture, which entitled visiting fans to a partial refund when restaged ?

Sounds like Palovaara is working his ticket and will be deemed withholding his services henceforth, with r/r for him till the end of the season, which will strengthen the Tigers hand, given that Pjiper, Harrison, Wolbert, & Lykke can cover his programmed rides

Prove it by checking the records for the past five years to confirm one way or the other Why do you assume this would be necessary ?

I recall it has happened a few years ago, so if you care to examine historical records, you should find it As there were two separate meetings tonight,it would appear the licensed official's interpretation of the rules differs from yours. I would imagine that a qualified ref would be more au fait with the application of the rulebook, than someone who merely has a copy of the rulebook, but no current practical experience of how to apply them

Has been done before, and where there are time curfews and the result of the first match is already decided, seems sensible. Or would you prefer that the second match is undecided because of being unable to complete before curfew ? To be fair to Worky, the long delays because of requiring the County Ambulance, and then an Air Ambulance, was outwith their control.

You're being overly self-deprecating of your team which has noticeably improved at home recently with EK & the mercurial JG more than a match for any PL visitors round Rye House. If the talented Boxall has had his mechanical problems fixed by Michael Lee, and r/r for Mellgren is already providing better returns than the unfit Swede was achieving, I doubt if any of the previous victorious visitors would come away with the points now. Bowen & Greenwood at reserve should shred Sneddon & Fox, who are unlikely to suddenly find the fast way around. Also, if he rides, I doubt Stevie Worrall will be 100% fit for the Monarchs. Reckon the 3 match points will stay at home, but hope for an upset.

I cannot see how how a one race day per league would be feasible in the UK, given that with a few exceptions, the stadia are not owned by the Speedway Promotion,. the facilities are shared with other sports, and local planning restrictions restrict use to certain weekdays. The consequence of imposing a single race day would probably mean quite a few tracks would immediately cease as they would be unable to run on the specified day of the week. Home meetings would be fortnightly and this would reduce the potential income of the promoters, riders, and stadium landlords. Taking Ashfield as an example, if the specified raceday was not a Sunday or Saturday (though there might be Saturday date clashes with the resident football club), then the club would require to install floodlighting for weekday evening meetings. I agree the present situation is unsatisfactory, but the single race day per league proposal would probably put a lot of clubs existence in jeopardy.

Bit unkind to refer to the visiting Bandits in these terms

I have found this forecaster is usually more reliable than Michael Fish's former employer :- http://www.yr.no/place/United_Kingdom/Scotland/Armadale~2657067/hour_by_hour.html

Confirmed on Official Edinburgh website that Aaron Fox will return Would expect it might still take him some time to be 100% fit after being the innocent party of that terrible crash at Berwick. Weather forecast is good for tomorrow evening also.

So currently the failures are :- Aaron Fox, Rafal Konopka (from 7.00 ! ), Roland Benko, and Dimitri Berge , whilst the successes are Gino Manzares & Brady Kurtz

So if actually replacing an assessed rider in the declared team, which average would you use ?

By retaining an assessed average as the minimum for the season, this could benefit a team inasmuch that a higher scoring rider could remain at reserve. Also if the assessed rider was unavailable, then r/r or guest replacement would be more advantageous.

Some clubs who have paid hospitality guests or matchday sponsors admit these people through the staff gate. Pehaps some of the alleged freeloaders fall into the above categories ?

TBH did not expect Monarchs to take any match points with Fox, who is decent round Brough, being absent, and being replaced by a NL guest who, predictably, failed to score. Nice to see Cookie notch a 12 pt max, which will hopefully have a positive effect on his form from hereon

Fox had scored 8 pts in each of his last two home team meetings, so it is unlikely any NL guest will emulate such a return on Friday. Somerset are imo the current PL form team, whereas some of the Monarchs are misfiring(both physically & mechanically) at the moment, and with this being their fourth meeting in 4 days, I foresee an away win on Friday