SteelShoe

Steve and Andrew did water and grade after 2 heats and generally kept on top of it thereafter. My perception was that visible dust was not really an issue especially in the main meeting, did increase later on in the Junior Championship races though but again not excessive.

Poole were very good today, your a good side if youv'e won your last 11 meetings so well done to them. We were outgated as indeed we were at Wimbourne Road way too many times and the top Pirates in the team were too fast when in front often enough for us to not be able to reel them in. Only 4 heat wins and 10 last places tells its own story. Sometimes results are also influenced by what circumstances the team you are racing against are experiencing and without doubt we missed Tate Zischke today. He had been knocking in double figures around Northside prior to his injury. A team can carry one non scoring reserve but two makes it a big ask even if just one of your top five misfires so I can't help but feel that we should have strengthened up . As a club we should not lose sight that the main income stream is usually the paying public so promotions should do there very best to give the fans the strongest line up they can just like Poole do. I admire them for that. Thanks to the Pirate fans that made the journey i'm sure you will have enjoyed your day and indeed your weekend, it's always great to see your team win away and to achieve that feat on consecutive days must have been great. For Worky we really need to regroup if we are to make the playoffs and extend our season. We can't really afford any drop off in form from any rider because you can't always rely on guests to score the points the rider there guesting for would so lets not fade away and undo the solid work to date. Up the Comets.

First 4 heats were a disaster for the Comets and we never fully recovered. The Scorps exploited the inside line off turn 2 multiple times with Claus going so wide on one occasion he was nearly in the next postcode. We had some battling heats in the middle of the meeting but a 2-4 and 1-5 in heats 12 and 13 effectively killed off any chance of the aggegate bonus point. Cookie led from the front tonight and he showed tremendous courage in heat 15 to squeeze round the outside on turn 2 to come out in front. Thanks to Jason Edwards for guesting tonight he battled in every race and maybe deserved more points . The warning signs are there that if we don't all fire tomorrow we will be another scalp for the Pirates so come on you Comets it's time to raise the bar and come out fighting especially Sam and Celina.

I wouldn't mind knowing what Poole pay their riders , be interesting for most fans I would imagine so fire away Skidder1 .

Ashton great guest for Poole. Be harder for him at No 2 though.

Quite True. In my opinion Poole have such a strong team and home track advantage that ties could be over if they have the first leg in semi finals which they seem to have manipulated. Can't understand why they haven't sorted a date out to come to Workington for the BSN semi, riders not available due to Poland maybe ?

Deal can't have been done yet Geoff otherwise I believe a new rider would have been riding this weekend.

I think this is a fair assessment. There is a small tight training track at Northside which could help, don't know if Sam has ever spent time on there . Dan and Tate certainly spent some time on there pre-season, they were joined by Brady Kurtz on at least one occasion.

Think I would use Kyle at 2, and on balance leave Antti at 3 and Claus at 4 to help counter Ben Cook in 12 and Zach in heat 14 . Comets need a much stronger performance from Claus than recent scores if Comets are to get the points. Poole consistently strong at the back end of meetings with Lawson and Ben Cook in 13 and 15 . Redcar were 6 points up last Friday going into heat 12 but a tac sub helped the Pirates post 3 x 5-1's and a 4-2 in the last 4 heats to win by 8. Good gates will be paramount for sure as the Pirates are slick. UTC.

Sam does not appear to have moved on at all from last season. Celina is very tidy on the bike but like Sam is let down by her gating , she also visibly does not appear to want to mix it in first corners and knocks off the throttle. I don't believe either will be in the team next season based on their form to date so it is really down to whether the promotion see us as playoff contenders and what further ambitions they have should we make them. Some fans will be happy with were we are for our first season back in the Championship while others will want us to push on and achieve what we can which will help to maintain fans interest as far into the season as possible. One would think the latter may well be more beneficial financially.

Not sensible if replacing Tate.

Why was Sam McGurk missing tonight ?

I don't expect they will. Last season Max Perry had an higher average by 1.5 to 2 points both home and away than Sam and also outscored him in all 4 clashes with Leicester Lion Cubs. Poole seen the promise in him for 2024. He had a bad accident in the last meeting of the season which may have affected his early season confidence. Max was scoring good points on a regular basis last season in a team that had Vinnie Foord at reserve on half the average.

Max Perry is a rider I admired last season at Northside, would be a good replacement for Sam.

Not a great advert for speedway. No excuse for that track over the first half of the meeting. Bought the stream but wish I hadn't. Comets newbies to British Speedway appeared to have their confidence undermined by the early unpredictability of the track while the dust levels for an evening meeting were just unacceptable. Nearly made the journey so glad I didn't. Interesting that the longest grade and watering was after heat 12 which coincided with the interval. If this amount of water had been used earlier the dust level would have been much lower. I think the guy on the water truck was just emptying the water tanks at that stage. Comets reserves very poor all round tonight.

Very entertaining meeting with some cracking racing. Another concerning crowd on the face of it though which is a worry for UK speedway in general.

Both Tate and Anti are strong at home, to put them together at 3 and 4 would upset the balance of the current top 5 in my opinion. Where we could really do with some improvement is at reserve because if Claus or any of the other top 5 has a bad day then we could well be in trouble.The 7 points from excellent guest Jake Mulford helped disguise that very scenario on Saturday.

that is a fair comment.

I respectfully suggest we get off his back and get behind him. I don't know whether you have noticed but there are not that many riders out there who we could replace him with.

Bit harsh me thinks, with an average just over 7 he can hardly have been woeful too many times, he has however dipped recently from his early season form. I don't believe Claus has another team, this means his race sharpness has probably suffered a little due to the recent gap in fixtures. In addition it is not in his financial interests to only score 2 points. I've witnessed him put in some battling away performances and while he has maybe struggled to get to grips with Northside I'm sure it frustrates him also.

Tate will not be riding. I believe Celina is fit.

if it were 61-29 again the second leg wouldn't be much of a draw. 1st leg at Northside me thinks.

Is Anders calling out for a Championship ride ? . I believe he agreed to sign for Worky but then gave back word. Maybe he also expected Poland to come calling ???

Poole are hardly struggling and will have one strong reserve all season barring injury anyway. They could/should have given Max more time for sure but speedway is a huge confidence sport and if Max has been struggling with confidence then it is maybe in his best interests short term to rebuild that outside of the pressure of Championship racing. I have been watching Vinnie Foord's progress over the last month or so and he has definitely progressed . Be interesting to see how he does at Championship level.

This is so true, that was a hard watch indeed. Very poor advert for Premiership Speedway.