PotteringAround

We nominated Bewley in 17. Brennan isn't injured

Dan suffering from an 11-race gap between his 2nd and 3rd ride. Bad management

Dudek throws us a get out of jail card with that poor race there

Tactics were poor. Leaving Bewley out of the third block of races was a cock-up. Running both Ellis and Brennan in the third block to score duck eggs became a disaster when Woffy also ran a last. Threw away all our advantage and momentum. Bewley had to come out with all the pressure on him and not having seen the track since heat 5! Poor

Wouldn't be any pressure on the Brennan/Ellis ride if we had got the tactics right mid-meeting and not thrown the lead away and created the pressure. Could have gone into the final block of four races ahead, let Ellis/Brennan take heat 17 and leave it to the top 3 to bring it home in the final 3 races. It's been managed badly. Ellis might have just saved the management's embarrassment with that heat 13 second place. Good lad!

Yes. Throwing away points in the middle of the meeting to put massive pressure on Bewley to pull it back at the end. Should have been keeping the momentum going while we had it. Poor management.

Three last places in a row. A massive tactical cock-up.

Wow Lambert! All the GB boys looking incredibly determined.

Going well after the second block of races. Our top 3 have scored 16 points out of 18. Good effort from the other two riders in the "shared" position, but only 1 point from their efforts. Riobbed of a point by the referee and probably not the best team management planning to put them both off poor gates. We maybe could have got more.

Good point from Ellis. Even better that it was in front of a Pole. Janowski looked way off.

Maybe. But there's no guarantee that Charles Wright would have done any better than Brennan/Ellis

Great effort from Brennan. Just a bit unlucky/inexperienced

Shocking referee. Exclusion for Doyle all day long

Say what you like about Richard Lawson, but he's certainly got a sense of humour!

I certainly don't think GB are going to come last. I do think that the quality of riders and home advantage will be enough to see Poland win. But I believe GB are second favourites and could win. Australia could flop like the opening round or triumph like the race-off depending on how they go on the night. Denmark I just don't see as winners.

How are Brennan and Ellis being set up to fail? There's one person (possibly 2) on here suggesting that Brennan/Ellis should be taken out of their easiest rides. The rest of us seem to be arguing against this as it's a stupid idea. Presumably, the GB managers are thinking in line with the majority of us. Our two non-GP riders are the weaker on paper, and we need to help them and get the best from them. The three GP riders should be believing they can beat anyone if we are going to win the final.

Thank god you're not the team manager! You're really suggesting that you want to make races easier for Bewley (one of the top riders in the world who should be scoring from any gate) but want to make it as difficult as possible for Brennan/Ellis (who would benefit from any help they can get).

No. If not 6 points behind he can only have 5 rides. If we're 6 behind he can have a 6th tactical ride. This applies to all the riders in the team, not just the reserve.

No advantage there either. If you don't drop 6 behind (as you wouldn't want to) then you don't get tac rides, and you'd want Bewley, Lambert and Woffinden to be taking all their 5 rides, and it's just a case of how to split the other 5 rides between Brennan and Ellis.

Yes. An ill-thought-out move that offers no advantage, and could backfire.

The Czechs were aiming for third place to get into the Race-off. They were always going to quickly fall 6 or more behind the top two, and could then juggle their resources to pinpoint defeating the Germans. They didn't have to worry about trying to catch up to GB and Sweden, just maximising the chances of outscoring Germany. In that way it's a legitimate tactic. In the race-off and final it's only about winning. There's no damage limitation exercise to target just one team. So the "put the best rider at No.5" thing offers no advantage.

Same here. This week's has arrived!

The same. 5 rides plus a tactical.

Everyone in the top 4 gets 4 programmed rides between heats 1 and 16, plus a nominated ride (heats 17-20) and if the team is 6 or more points behind the leaders they can also take a tactical ride.

They don't get more rides. They just get the opportunity to pick and choose when to use those rides. This may offer an advantage to a lesser team in the opening rounds if they are trying to avoid fourth place and sneak into the play-off. You know you are going to be using tacticals and you can target your closest rival's weakest rides. But I see no advantage in the play-off or Final when you're aiming to win the meeting.