ZODIAK

Just starting raining in town centre!

If the rain doesn't materialise, Ben Morley will replace the unwell Richard Hall for Sheffield. Beat me to it Fozzie! Slight improvement in the forecast, with light rain now from 8 until 10 before the heavy stuff comes. Fingers crossed it holds off enough to push the meeting through to a conclusion.

It's supposed to be the warmest weekend of the year so far with temperatures above average and apparently warmer than Spain, with nice sunshine all weekend. Except a period this evening when heavy rain is expected between 7 and midnight! Honestly you couldnt make it up! http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2646057?day=0

Worrall and the reserves I think Pob.

R/R for Sargeant tomorrow.

Sargeant is another who failed to score against Scunny and generally looked uncomfortable. The fact he and one of the two reserves will take two of the four rides for one of our heatleaders makes going with R/R all the more strange. Did they decide straight off the bat that they would go with R/R, or did they go for a guest but couldn't get anyone suitable? Guess we'll never know. I think our poor home record last year and opening night loss this year has made us all a bit nervous and pessimistic!

Wasn't impressed with either reserve TBH. Ritchings scored 4 from 5 rides, but only beat Josh Bailey twice out of three meetings between the two. His other two came from Sargeant falling and finishing ahead of Paco in heat two. He certainly looked the better of the two and more competitive than Paco so deserved the extra ride. Not getting on his back as it's very early days I'm just giving my honest opinion on what I saw that night. Bailey is nearly a point and half below Ritchings in the NL averages and I think you want to be beating your opposite number at home at least so Ritchings will be disappointed to have been beaten by him in heat two. I have faith though that both reserves will do fine in the long run. I've said many times that I think Paco will be nearer the 5 point mark than the 3, and Ritchings started his NL season well and there are worse riders than him around in the number 7 berth. My main concern at the moment though is Paco at Foxhall. He's looked absolutely terrible on the two occasions we've seen him and when a rider openly states that he struggles to get around then that is a concern. Surely he must get better the more he rides it? He may never be a track specialist, but you'd expect any professional rider to improve around their home track the more he rides it.

Think we all are! Especially with the way our reserves rode at home to Scunny. Fingers crossed Paco can get a point or two ​

Bit disappointing. Think I'd use Sargeant and Paco early doors and try and stay in the hunt, and then use Risager and Covatti later in the meeting to hopefully finish strongly.

Good stuff always good value around Foxhall is Stead Should be some good battles between him, King and Covatti.

Anyone got a Twitter account? If so get on Twitter and ask Chris! He seems to be replying to anyone and everyone who asks him a question..

Think that's a typo. In the fixtures menu for April it's down as LC on the same website.

Agree it's actually a huge meeting for us Saturday. We had a really poor home record last season, and we simply can't afford to lose both our opening two home meetings of this season as well.

Ahh thanks I thought Risager was a fraction ahead of Kerr in the averages. A little better then, but I'd still prefer to go with a guest I think depending on the quality available.

Agreed, King too.

"Changes have been made on the track but I have a broader view of the whole club, not just the team, although that is very key of course. For me, we were put on the back foot in the winter as we needed to invest in a new air fence, which for any speedway club nowadays, £20,000-£25,00 is a lot of money, but we needed to do that. At the same time, track wise, things had deteriorated a bit and there's been some necessary investing" That was from Louis himself so at least he's admitted the track has deteriorated, but I'm not quite sure where the supposed investment has gone track wise? Maybe the outlay on the new air fence has meant little left in the kity to put some much needed shale on the track?

Wouldn't R/R be Risager, Sargeant and the reserves? Far too risky that especially with Paco struggling to get around Foxhall at the moment. Definitely need a guest. Still think Heeps will be the one but we should find out soon.

Good shout that. Robson has started like a house on fire.

Wouldn't bet against it being Heeps.

Can't Lakeside use one of their 50 winter signings and leave Kerr to ride for us? They have Ben Morley in their "squad" why not use him? Fair enough the rule book says that the EL club get priority, but didn't Adam Ellis choose to ride for us over Lakeside a few times when Lakeside also had priority?

Could do worse than get on the blower to Covatti. Picked up right where he left off last year, flying. Obviously knows his way around Sheffield too.

A big test for the Witches on Saturday after being caught cold by Scunny in the opening night at Foxhall a couple of weeks ago. A couple of positives going in to the meeting though, Risager is fit to return and King had a days testing at Birmingham last week to sort out his early season machinery problems, and has subsequently only dropped two points in two meetings for Coventry and is said to be much happier with his bikes. Sheffield look a good outfit though and this will be a tough test especially with Sheffield looking to have the upper hand at reserve. Hopefully Paco gets going at home or at least shows signs of improvement. Hall should clean up at reserve though you'd have thought so it could be a tough evening again. Oh and Saturday night speedway at Foxhall! Will be interesting to see how big the crowd is.

Risager having a special boot fitted and "should" be available.

I've never rated Simon Lambert, sorry. Fair play to him as he had a good season by his standards last year, but I'm unconvinced he'll continue that improvement. I'll now await his match winning paid maximum next Monday and all the Panthers fans ramming those words back down my throat!

Nearly always a great meeting at Peterborough so no worries there. Always value for money. I mentioned Risager in my earlier post but of course he's injured at the moment, but I did read somewhere that he's flying out to Denmark for treatment and there's an outside chance he could make next Monday's meeting. If he doesn't then that will hurt us further. We missed him badly yesterday at Scunny where his rides accumulated just three points. That's the problem when you build the team the way we have with a strong top four and then a tail. We need to keep our top four fit as much as possible if we're to have any success this season.