MD

Several weeks of rain offs, poor weather and another set of Glasgow Edinburgh meetings not in the league. Yip!

Surely Glasgow will fill one of these blank fixtures with the recent rain off.

Bit of a tick the box exercise on a bitterly cold night. Doolan, Howe and Gappmaier were in amongst the points. Summers was pretty poor for a former rider and Sarjeant sat still at the tapes all night. Time for some warmer weather!

Good point, speedway never ever learns from this. However there are plenty of blank fixtures throughout the season to slot these fixtures in though I bet some clubs will still end up running double headers towards the end of the season!

Thought Proctor now had a British passport. Wasnt that why he sat out coming here 2 or 3 years ago?

Tough looking meeting coming up. Worky will revel in the super slick track that will be prepared due to the incessant rain. The Aussie whiner at reserve will almost certainly get 7 rides. Worrall should have himself sorted out after a woeful first meeting and be good to finally see Bomber.

He has a point. The forecast has been atrocious all week and even predicted snow at one point.

Indeed, thought it was telling no one picked up Perry until an NL rider was unable to take their place.

With SD having gone, we have lost many years of experience and speedway nuance with it, that wont replace itself overnight. The Facennas will have harvested some knowledge during the last few years but not everything. Do we have the ability to see through the chancers e.g. Barker, do we have a good enough knowledge of the rules to crunch the numbers on a team change at the next set of averages, do we have the contacts to seek out new riders if injuries happen, who is going to kick arses when riders dont push themselves? Time will tell. There has clearly been a fall out somewhere along the line though hopefully the door has been left open for SD to return. Its only after someone has left you fully realise the contribution they made.

First impressions of reading a tersely worded statement like that are ousted. Minimal information, succint and to the point. Health issues would perhaps be indicated by stepping down temporarily. SD is a tiger through and through and regardless of the circumstances deserves our absolute thanks.

Harkess smelt an away win and the chance to piss all over our event. Not to be. The Monarchs will get plenty practice at the new improved Ashfield being back twice again before the end of May.

He needs to be man managed and put on a tight leash. Im surprised by last night, surely we have said to him we'll bring you back but the tapes issues must stop. He's played victim too often in the past and in reality his career is in the last chance saloon. Only he can want to change. He'll be replaced if he doesnt!

Pretty decent opener, JPB done us a favour, Jack Thomas had one of the best senior debuts' you are likely to see. Pushed Sarjeant into the shadows, who clearly hasnt learned anything from the last 3-4 seasons with another batch of tapes offences. Vissing, Kerr and Starke superb. For the 0131, Wells and Riss E were good, Williamson strong at reserve. Ruml looked steady and Andersson not at the races. Well set up for next Friday.

Rain and 6 degrees. With quite a few blank Fridays over the season did we really have to start in March.

Dont think our owners do second chances. They wont be mucked about and rightly so.

Replacing a 2 pointer who got injured during the season was always going to be a problem but doing it before a wheel is turned adds another level of difficulty. Leaves an opportunity to restructure the team and give it more balance, there are some high averaged reserve pairings out there. The Facenna's arent shy about making hard nosed business decisions and I would have no hesitation in saying thanks but unfortunately .... to CV and using the combined points to have a higher averaged reserve if suitable riders could be found. The Scottish Cup meetings are challenges so we have a bit of time before the first official fixture where we are committed to that team.

No more knee deep tracks would be a good thing.

Didnt mean NCL just used them as an example. Three points should be the minimum entry to our league IMO.

Thats partly a consequence of having 2 point riders on both teams, the gulf from No1 to 7 was ridiculous. Newcastle on one visit had Coles and Hopwood who were adrift after a lap in almost every heat. Thats cost cutting at its worst, i would have preferred six man teams to last season. If the track is 2m wider the fastest line hopefully wont be sitting 6 inches off the fence. Looking forward to it already.

You couldnt make it up!

Anyway watch EDI pull a rabbit out of the hat and end up with a better rider than they were originally signing.

Fair point but the number of meetings between the two clubs has a saturation point. With the now Scottish Cup, League Cup, KO Cup and League meeting, that is more than enough to see Edinburgh in one season. The potential is also there to meet in the playoffs.

More likely a revenue exercise as the meetings are unlikely to be covered by season tickets which is understandable. The proof is the pudding if crowds hold up.

zzzzzzzzz. Never missed it or the Spring Trophy in the two years its been gone. Devalues the league meeting during the season when genuine points are up for grabs and both teams put in full effort. The first match of the season is always very well attended regardless of the visitors.

Dont think he is a promoter. Mouthpiece perhaps but almost certainly not promoter.