MD

He's always had a soft spot for that lot.

Only if Poole asked.

Plenty dirt on track. Kasper and Flinty kept us entertained. Sedgmen finally turned up. Brennan signed. Monarchs pumped at home. Beautiful.

That's been done. Nathan will have food poisoning next. Proper panic stations.

Brace yourself! Wrap up warm and self-medicate before arrival.

Tomorrow would be a good time for his season to start, been mediocre to this point.

He rode in the GP Qualifier in 2018 I think it was, but pulled out in his first or second heat having come back from injury too early.

The same weaknesses we started the season with are still present. Expecting them to perform differently this far in is unrealistic IMO. We need to change them if we can. Looking forward to Friday but have low expectations. Hopefully Brennan is hungry to earn back some money.

With such little respect for the BSPL, its secretive decision making and aversion to transparency, who would scrutinise the scrutineers. Giving wage responsibility to them is the equivalent of asking the Communist Party to manage the Bank of England.

No one is deceived by Sedgmen only beating reserves each meeting. He is a second string unable to beat other second strings.

For every Kye Thomson there are 15 Willie Lawsons'. Luck plays a huge part along with getting them on a low average where they can have limited impact on the team if they are sh1te.

The three risks were Sedgmen, Wells and Ostergaard, and only one came off. You need at least one improver in any team. Broc Nicol has increased his average but having shown he was a decent small track rider in 2019, those qualities seem to have deserted him. Ironically Ostergaard may have made himself unemployable next season with an average just under 8.

No one maintains immaculate standards all year. In 2019 Rasmus Jensen stepped up on the occasions Cook did'nt which were mainly on the road. The rationale of building a team with strength from 1-7 was sound however Sedgmen and Wells havent fulfilled what were perceived to be bargain averages. Connor Bailey not showing at the start didnt help and now he appears back at square one, and with no NDL team isnt riding enough to improve. All these issues were present before Oystercard was injured, its just now they are magnified as it was Ulle's scoring that was keeping us afloat. We might also be wary of making a change even though its glaring we need one. In 2019 we moved Sarjeant on and brought in MBA which backfired. He was somehow worse than Sarjeant.

Think he was being given a chance to regain his confidence at reserve but its made no difference . If anything he's gotten worse not helped by losing his place at Sheffield. We may be better to field a young overseas rider with a view to next year if available on 5 points.

On the bright side, very few teams will go to Newcastle and take a point. If Eastbourne pack up, two of their riders could seriously improve our team.

That's partly why I thought of Summers who rides at a Saturday track though he did have a shocker of a guest appearance for us at Redcar many years ago, think he got a point and lost us the meeting having been there with the 0131 just before it and got double figures but that's the way it goes. Second in the averages is an extremely difficult position to cover with r/r in a very strong team never mind ours.

Absolutely, we also don't need to use the highest averaged riders available like Jye Etheridge the other week, when riders on lower averages can do a much better job at certain tracks. Aaron Summers may be worth a shout for home meetings, he was impressive at Ashfield two weeks ago and perhaps has turned a corner. Outside the play off contenders there isn't much choice though Paul Starke is a rider I keep thinking could do a reasonable job. Just not Jye Etheridge again.

Just like Lewis Kerr in 2018, Ulrich has been our rider of the season and his points have covered the arses of some of his colleagues who have more than underperformed. Perhaps announcing Ulle's season being over is that a signing is imminent. Its a hard average to fill.

#FFS

Potential banana skin this one. The rain forecast for the next two days has already improved for today, though thunderstorms now predicted for Friday. The track will definitely have some moisture in it which won't suit Sedg, come to think of it he doesn't much like the dry either. If Palin is on song at reserve we could be twitching again.

Job done somehow. Best wishes to the injured riders.

Wish Sedgmen would do likewise.

We've been twitching half the season!

Ht12 60.47 Ht13 60.69 Ht14 61.13 Ht15 60.56