Najjer

For our first season in "the big time" I don't really give two hoots what we do away from home. Winning at home though has to be a minimum requirement. The racing this season has been second to none and the best for many a year that I can remember. With a change to the team line up, we should start winning at home i would fancy. It'd be amazing if we could make the play offs but not sure that'll happen.

Teams can be redeclared up until 42.00.

Wolverhampton rode at Somerset last Friday with only 4 of their usual side available.

I wasn't at the Leicester cup match, but for the visits of Poole, Swindon and Wolves plenty of cars have been in the second car park especially on Good Friday which has to be the biggest crowd ever for a league match at Somerset. Just to put that into perspective I can't recall over the past couple of seasons for a standard league meeting ever being in the second car park so crowds are without doubt up. Poole, Swindon and Wolves are all relatively 'close' which helps too with additional away fans attending. As has been said, i really hope crowds don't start to drop because of some loses - and I have no doubt the Somerset promotion will do everything within their power to ensure that doesn't happen. They've never been afraid to be ruthless with regards team changes in the past and I don't see that stopping now. I'd agree with that. I love watching speedway in general, but it'd never have the same appeal to me if it wasn't following my team. I'd take a standard meeting watching Somerset over watching a GP at Cardiff just for the hell of it with no team to follow, any night of the week....

Struggling to disagree with any of that. I see the troll is back.....

Quite possibly yep - although it'd be harsh on Graversen who has more than done his job whilst Starke has looked very poor in the last couple of weeks. I'd more than welcome the idea of Bridger though. Can be abit of an idiot but think he would be brilliant at home.

No Bjerre or Cook, Somerset would be foolish to allow this one to be changed now. Just more poor fixture planning as a situation like that should never occur.

I get the feeling it will be left that Hougaard will be our number 1 for the remainder of the season (or Josh averages depending) and that we will use whatever points are available after our final meeting away to Wolves Monday to replace Starke with. I hope we get a thrashing to allow us extra points to play with as we are only about 2 points under the limit at the moment, so not exactly season changing just yet.

I thought the same. He was pretty garbage for Plymouth last season but has come on leaps and bounds from what I saw last night. Has been banging in some good scores this year too.

...and by OTA standards this was probably one of the worst of the season, which just shows how spoilt we really are. Heat 4 with Josh hunting down Worrall and also heat 8 with Jake going from 4th to 2nd only for Howarth to come steaming back under him was both brilliant races though.

Exactly that - the solution is to plan fixtures MUCH better.

Terrible. More bike troubles again packing up in heat 1, never looked like being in contention after that.

Could of been either or really. I don't think I've seen Jake Allen make a decent start all season so far, but you always feel abit more comfortable with him than Jan and generally normally looks quicker, even though his points tally doesn't show that. I mean that with no disrespect intended to Jan, who put in another good performance tonight and should be praised for that. After losing to Swindon and Kings Lynn I went home wondering how we had lost both matches after feeling pretty comfortable in those matches - but tonight we never really seemed like winning right from the first heat. Praise must go to Josh Grajczonek again, simply sensational especially his heat 4 win from the back on Richie Worrall. I've never seen him ride so well as what he is around the OTA this year. After Josh and Jan I'm struggling to find much positives though. Rohan looked so much quicker than he has the past few weeks, but that's clutching at straws abit as again he just can't get out of the start. One has to wonder if we've witnessed Paul Starke's last home meeting for the rebels tonight too. What happpened when Charles Wright came to grief? I wasn't watching him and just caught him hitting the deck very awkwardly. Glad he was okay as was at full speed at the end of the straight.

Still trolling I see....

Kyle is always brilliant at OTA too so expect a big score from him tonight.

The same as Chris Holder - both Lynn visits are Grand Prix weekends.

In this instance that would solve nothing really - Poland has always been on a Sunday and now they've seen fit to start swapping days to whenever suits them. I can understand Mark Ross being missing but heat leader like Sam Masters missing to ride in the second tier is abit of a joke.

Somerset have actually been pretty clever and good business sense to ensure we've signed 7 riders where we take priority on all of them. The only one in question is Hougaard, although his SEC commitments are now over already so hopefully he is here for the rest of our fixtures now. It amazes me that some clubs, and I think Leicester are probably the worst culprits, have so many riders missing on a regular basis and their management don't seem to give a monkeys about it. At a quick glance Swindon have also done a very good job in signing riders they take priority on. Maybe my viewpoint has changed now that we're a top flight club but I don't believe that a 2nd division fixture should take priority over a 1st division fixture - unless in the event of a match being rearranged. However that said, the mind literally boggles how the fixture list has been screwed up so badly. It's criminal that this whole thread is basically discussing riders that are missing instead of what should of been a discussion about Wolves looking to win at Somerset and Somersets chances with the upturn of form of Rohan on Monday.... however the rider absentees is the biggest issue with speedway at the moment in this country.

Confirmed that Lambert, Richie Worrall and Ellis Perks guest for Wolves. Such poor fixture planning.

You're obsessed.

I don't claim to know loads about him, but it appears that he always has something to moan about? Track is too wet, too grippy, too slick, too round etc etc... always an excuse.

Again, I refer to my previous post that what pi$$ poor planning this is. I know Riss has only recently signed but knowing that Lindgren and Masters were going to be missing is taking the biscuit. I'm going to assume Kurtz will be guesting also?

Rohan Tungate has a spare engine that he used for the first few weeks of the season if Kasprzak needs one?

As I said in my previous post - it's just poor fixture planning. I would assume that Wolves will be not only without Lindgren but no Masters and no Riss either.

I understand what that the form dictates it takes priority - but why the hell is there a facility? If these teams want to sign those riders then they should be prepared to have to be without them if they can't organise their fixture list accordingly.