Noelinho

The whole point of playoffs is to have a big final at the end, which is better for marketing and provides continued interest rather than things fizzling out. That may not happen in practice, not least given the lack of any real marketing of U.K. speedway, or even any clubs that individually market their product at anything more than the most basic level, but playoffs do provide marketing opportunities that a simple league structure don’t. It’s a lot easier to sell semi finals and finals than it is to sell matchday 12 of 17.

Speedway fans :“Why does speedway get no coverage?” Also speedway fans: “don’t bother showing the speedway on TV”

Fair enough. I guess you'd get in trouble with season ticket holders too. Obviously if it was an Ashfield match I'd be all in favour of holding it because the answer to "do you want to watch speedway at Ashfield" is, "yes", every time.

It would also create an issue in the first round - who can guest when no one has been knocked out yet?

What's the penalty if it doesn't happen? Is there any incentive for the teams to organise the meeting still, given it's a dead rubber?

That stream aside, the coverage has been very decent since the early season issues. Adam Roynon has been a great find recently too. It definitely lacks a few polishes around the edges but they've got the basics right and they do some of them better than Eurosport. Eurosport really struggle with transitions and the camera work can be quite shoddy, BSN do both better. They also make use of their main presenter mid-stream... it often feels like Eurosport send Abi home during the racing! I'd definitely re-subscribe to BSN next year if they offer the service again. £20pm is good value for what they're providing.

Get Marcin Nowak back! Its looking like the Tigers’ season is done. Might be better off racing with the ambulance drivers.

I don’t think so. The shortlist has been reduced to six in recent years, which I’d say provides a challenge to minority sports. I would also suggest at least one person on the shortlist will (rightly) be a woman (although they are sadly still often overlooked for this award - it’s still dominated by men’s sport unless something exceptional happens), and I’d be surprised if there isn’t someone from para sport. Assuming they are taken by different people (and given the women’s football team are almost certain to be represented there, I think it’s a reasonable assumption), that suggests only four spots left. Jonathan Rea only made the shortlist once during his spell of domination on World Superbikes. Jamie Chadwick has dominated W Series this year, and I think she’d be more likely to make the shortlist than Dan Bewley on account of this being her third year winning the title. If Dan wins the last three rounds and takes the title, different story, but that’s a tall order. Short of it is, I think you either need to be the current champion in your sport, or a very average England men’s footballer (I’m not going to try to justify Raheem Sterling making the list in previous years) to make the shortlist. I’d like to see the BBC return to a shortlist of ten and give minority sports a bigger profile, but no idea if that will happen. Maybe we just need to get Phil Lanning on the shortlisting panel…

Reminds me of when the BBC had MotoGP rights. Charlie Cox would mention the bike tyres had “a contact patch the size of a credit card” every race. If only it wasn’t on the BBC, he could’ve got someone to sponsor him.

Yeah, I just wonder how long that can hold for. By my count, 12 riders have won a GP since Tai last did, and 13 since Doyle did. I know they have had podiums in that time, but their performances have been no better than mid pack for quite a few years now. I like them both and I’d like to see them in the GP and doing well, but with Fricke and Bewley with two wins each, and both Australia and GB doing well in SoN without Doyle or Tai on track, it does feel like they’re getting left behind, unless they can crack the top six by season end.

Doyle and Tai aren’t doing a lot to make me think they merit a pick at the moment. Do they deserve one ahead of Vaculik, who has a first and a second this year?

You’re right. Also happened in round one that year.

Wow. That guy soaks up pressure so well.

They were all in the semis, but not the same semi. Dan in one, Robert/Tai the other.

Dudek very lucky there.

I'd say the commentary with Rowe and Roynan last night was the best coverage I've heard all season. BSN has definitely improved through the season. The booth presentation can sometimes still be a little rough, but I don't really mind, I think it's just genuine enthusiasm and I'd much rather see that than listen to Sam Ermolenko. With the issues they had early on in the season, I did cancel after the particularly awful experience they had at Edinburgh, but I re-subscribed once I saw they had improved things and I've not regretted it since (although I'm not sure my wife is so keen on the amount of speedway I've been watching ) On Tom Brennan, I think you have to remember he had one of the lowest averages of everyone in the meeting yesterday. I didn't expect him to do very well. He's just not there yet. He is getting better though. He joined Glasgow last season, I think as a consequence of Ulle's injury. He rode mainly at 3+4, and he didn't set the world on fire but he showed a bit of promise. He got better over the course of the remainder of the season and his scores were 3,4,6,6,8,7,4. Home and away form were fairly similar. This year, he's been thrust in the deep end at 5, with Ulle coming back at 3. That's actually worked out really well for our team, but at start of the season I felt that was a tough ask for him. He's scored double figures just under 50% of the time. His average has gone up slightly whilst riding at a tougher position. Basso gets all the plaudits because of his exuberant style and Tom's much steelier and goes under the radar a bit more. With another year's experience, maybe he can be back there next year in the mix, and possibly get closer to pushing the #1 spot for whichever team he's riding for.

You say that, but how often do Belle Vue and Glasgow lose at home? When you look at how most teams do when they come to Glasgow, we do get a decent home advantage. Yes, anyone can race it with the right setup, but the Glasgow riders generally have that setup, with the added advantage of gating being very much optional at times. Really looking forward to seeing how Northside turns out, and also the new Edinburgh stadium - hopefully that all goes through smoothly. The plans certainly make it look a more appealing racing track than Armadale. Have to say, Berwick provided some fantastic National League racing at the double header I was at earlier in the season too. Championship less so, but the nice thing about the double header is twice the chances of getting something good.

Good win for Sam. Class of the field all night really.

I don’t see any issue with the track from a safety perspective, it’s just not racey, so your position at the end of the back straight on lap one is pretty much the race.

I think there might have been a pass in heat 12 as well? Danny King made 1 pass, Masters made 1 pass, Wright made 2 passes in one heat. Apart from that, it’s been one for the die hards.

A good pass from Danny King, but I think that’s it?

Having a Scottish ref in a meeting involving a Scottish team is no stranger than having an English ref in a meeting involving an English team. Some people come up with the weirdest nonsense.

Moving on is fine, but to go from “everything’s fine” to “meeting cancelled” in 5 minutes is dreadful. You have to communicate better than that. Good on Jim McGregor explaining on BSN but it seems pretty amateur hour overall.

It’s by no means the worst meeting I’ve seen from Monmore Green. Not amazing, but bearable. Not a glowing endorsement, I concede…

We'll see. You'd fancy all three teams to make the semi finals if at full strength. Glasgow suffering a bit with injuries at the moment but hopefully we can make it work. Not sure if we can get Sedgemen guesting on Ulle's average? Might be a good fit given how he's been going this year. Hopefully Cookie and Basso will be fully fit by then.