ZODIAK

To be honest it's probably better to have broken the other wrist as daft as it sounds, than the troublesome left wrist he broke previously. Get well soon lad.

It's Lanham for Gino, and the R/R is for Heeps. So that means everyone bar King can take a R/R ride. Tungate, Covatti, Lanham and especially Hawkins if last night is anything to go by, should in theory cover Heeps' rides well.

Not a bad guest Lanham he's been riding pretty well this season.

We also thought we'd beat Sheffield last Monday and we got stuffed at home so nothing is certain with this Ipswich team.

And from Manzarez' R/R rides and our Guest for an in form Covatti, we scored a combined two points! We were more than justified in our fears. We've now given ourselves a great chance to progress, and that is only because none of us were expecting Hawkins to suddenly spring to life and bang in 14 points!! He's been woeful and I can only assume he was riding an engine that he's been waiting for?

Thanks Michael Fish

And we win that one comfortably!

Whinging? Maybe, but also maybe a few over 40's that are used to seeing the likes of John Louis, Billy Sanders, Shrimp Davey, Dennis Sigalos, John Cook, Chris Louis, Mark Loram, Tony Rickardsson, Tomasz Gollob, Jarek Hampel, Jem Doncaster and Scott Nicholls amongst others, who have worn the Witch on their chest over the years and seen our club win titles in the top tier, are not overly enthused with today's goings on!! I appreciate the likes of the Scottish Giants Edinburgh and Glasgow have never seen the likes of this quality don their race jacket, but excuse us that have who expect a little better than seeing our club play second fiddle in the second tier of British Speedway!!

LOL behave! Are you playing the "we still beat a very good Witches team card"? The team at Berwick is nowhere near as strong as a full Witches line up and you damn well know it.

Strange isn't it, not a drop of rain forecast on any weather report, and yet we've had an absolute downpour in town centre and roads are flooded! Good job there isn't a meeting tonight.

Possibly, but maybe they were asked and declined we don't know. What we do know, is that Covatti is the biggest miss in this team simply because he's a rider riding way above his current average. We always knew he was a trump card on an attractive average this season, but the problem is when he's missing we can only replace him with a 5 pointer, when Covatti himself is riding like a 7-8 pointer. R/R really hurts us this time as well as its Nielsen, a woefully out of form Hawkins and Branford taking Manzares' rides. (Can Heeps take one?) No disrespect to Lawson, but he's no replacement for King either. All in all its all gone a bit poo!

Richard Lawson for King, Robert Branford for Covatti , and R/R for Manzares. Oh dear..

Oh terrific. Mickey Mouse cup anyway

http://www.lovespeedway24.co.uk/teams/ipswich-witches/soft_witches_slammed_by_louis_after_sheffield_debacle_1_4062891?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

http://www.lovespeedway24.co.uk/teams/ipswich-witches/soft_witches_slammed_by_louis_after_sheffield_debacle_1_4062891?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed This was the article.

Covatti was excellent again. The Sheffield fans watching must have wondered where this version of Covatti was last season! It's a good job we have got the current version, because if we had the 2014 version we wouldn't even be competitive!!

Interesting criticism from Louis today in the Ipswich Star accusing the Witches riders having a "soft underbelly" and whinging and moaning about track conditions. He said there was only one set of riders whinging about the track and that was the Ipswich riders, the Sheffield riders just got on with it. Bit of a pattern emerging here as they were exactly the same at the Peterborough meeting. It seems unless the conditions are nigh on perfect some riders just won't turn up. That's a tip for all the other clubs who are entertaining the Witches this year starting with Berwick and Newcastle this weekend, make your track a little on the tricky side and chances are you'll win at a canter!!

Problem with day meetings as we all know is that it's really difficult to keep moisture in the track. The best we can hope for is rain in the morning like we had on Good Friday. The track was actually a bit on the heavy side early doors on Good Friday but the meeting was pretty decent as a result.

Think Gino himself was hoping to make his return on Monday, but having listened to Phil Hilton's interview on another thread that Badge posted yesterday, he didn't seem keen on Gino returning for this one at all. In fact, he even let slip in the interview that it'll be R/R at #2. Edit: This is the interview, go to 01:34 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02p664p#auto

Definitely when JL was running the show. But Chris Louis seems to be slightly more reactive to poor performers. Both Makinen and Doolan were both binned in recent seasons after prolonged poor performances so at least he has shown that although riders still get a fair crack of the whip, if poor performances carry on too long then he'll act. Very difficult to be critical of promoters though who are loyal to riders for longer than they probably should be, even though it can be frustrating for us supporters.

Agree. Seems to be one of the genuine nice guys in the sport and you rarely hear anyone have a bad word to say about the fella so I think we're all hoping he turns it around. Having said that, if he doesn't show any signs of improvement over the coming weeks then he'll quite rightly come under huge pressure for his team place. Fingers crossed he can pick up a few points at reserve on Monday to get him going again and then take it from there.

Problem we have now is I think we look a lot less potent with Hawkins at reserve than Covatti. Even if Hawkins regains a bit of form and confidence, he's not likely to replicate Covatti's reserve scoring IMO. Despite the comments above we've actually only had the one really poor away performance and that was at Peterborough, but I feel a lot less confident with Hawkins and Nielsen at reserve than Covatti and Nielsen, especially if Covatti's form suddenly takes a hit riding in the main body of the team.

Hawkins' fitness isn't an issue, he said so himself in Thursday's Star that he's physically fine. It is a concern however that he admits he's struggling mentally. We can't let that continue much longer I'm afraid.

Witches to take a point I think. If we have ambitions to actually lift the trophy, we have to come to these places and keep it close.

"We work to a strict budget and buying Ulrich is considerably more viable financially than having to pay a loan fee annually to use him". With all due respect to Ostergaard, he's not an EL rider so I guess the Panthers have no intention of returning to the top flight anytime soon..