Ben91

He rides in the Elite League, doesn't make him too good for the NL, let's not kid ourselves.

No rain at present, grey skies though about a mile from the track.

I spoke to a bloke on the street today, he said if it rains he'll put his umbrella up, slowly at first but once it starts pouring he'll open it fully.

Reckon it'll be Cottham if he fits.

I can't see how Birmingham could have accommodated Ellis this year and still built such a good team anyway. Is this going against the grain of the NL? Of course it isn't, he's 20 and a young British talent. If it is going to help him in his progression then we all may benefit in future if he makes the GB squad in the coming years. He's been scoring well for Poole, perhaps he feels that the extra meetings in the NL will help him keep his eye in. Eastbourne are a standalone NL side and need to do what they can to be successful. That said I still think Birmingham and Kent have better sides at present, the Eagles look on par with Cradley, Kings Lynn and Mildenhall in the play-off scrap. Personally I think they'd have been better going along the lines of Owen and Dan Spiller but perhaps those avenues weren't open at this time. The club can't be accused of not trying and not being proactive though.

So to sum it up, you're pleased to have signed Morris?

Branford is better than Karger and has an average a point and a half lower, that frees up a point and a half to sign a better rider further up the order. If we don't sign Branford in the PL someone else will and Branford will end the season with a higher PL average than Karger.

Wouldn't be many if any fixture clashes and we could use guests in that instance anyway.

You could bring in Owen and Dan Spiller for Hughes and Andrews, then you'd have a stronger side than you started the season with.

Agree, Hopwood's a good NL rider but that's it. Hopefully Branford's return will coincide with him replacing Karger in the PL team, then both of our big hitters in the Raiders side will also be Rockets, which ultimately should be the point. Priest has started really well but he's too long in the tooth to go any further than the NL now too IMO.

Not sure what makes it a poor showing when our promotion have said that we're looking to use the NL to develop our lower order riders and due to the top heavy nature of the side we have a lot of those.

I don't know the ins and outs but he was declared in the team, then sold to Ipswich who loaned him to Birmingham. Whether Brum waved the chequebook is conjecture really, only Hume and the Brummies will know that.

What makes him too good for a reserve spot out of interest? Because he's been better than a majority of the other draft reserves over the last couple of seasons? His Premier League average is still below seven, if that's a rider who on the whole is too good to be an Elite League reserve then I worry for the state of the sport. This year is huge for Newman, he'll move into the main body of the side potentially, then when he hasn't got two reserve heats each meeting we'll see how good he really is. He needs a big year at PL level too.

Letting go of Hume looks like a huge mistake right now.

The BSPA had put them on ice in the hope that they could be rescued and they were. He was and is still in the declared Plymouth 1-7 as far as the rules are concerned. Has it worked out well for Hopwood? He'll likely be out of a job again once Branford comes back to the UK, more like making the best of the situation.

Big win for the Brummies here.

That's the exact point though, he doesn't. He signed for a PL team, therefore he is ineligible to ride NL because his PL average is too high. If he had signed for a NL team initially and picked up a PL place during the season that is allowed, the rule has been changed to give riders who miss out on the PL in the first instance, like Ash Morris, a chance to get PL racing should it arise. Bear in mind that Eastbourne didn't need to make any changes at all, all they have done is replace Hopwood with Perks now. The season has started and Stefan is in a declared PL one-to-seven, Plymouth were put on ice and have been saved so at no point could he have signed for a NL club unless Plymouth had been unable to continue.

I'd have left it as it is personally, pick of the guests for the meetings Rob would miss, obvious choice would be Bowen at home, he's taken a booking for Eastbourne tonight too so he was available, I'm sure he'd have scored more at Birmingham than he will at Lynn too.

It's not the age so much, Woods has been around far longer than Ayres and yet Ayres is the guy riding PL now, you've either got it in you or you haven't in some cases I guess.

Wethers will outscore Clegg I'd imagine.

Ignore this, should read the recent posts before making my own!

Basically either reserve can move up but only the higher averaged one of the two moves up if both of them are in the top five of their side average wise. The race format should have been reverted to the same one used in the PL and NL, having two reserve races is going to inflate a lot of reserve riders' averages. That and the race format is horrible anyway.

Be interesting to see how Luke gets on, was never great on big tracks in the PL, can't have ridden Lynn for quite a while either.

Karger v Castagna will be worth the admission alone. Teams look relatively even, the winner of the King v Kennett battle will have a say as will Morley's form at reserve, his points could swing it for us.

Woods was re-signed because Hume went off to Ipswich and subsequently Birmingham. Was looking forward to the progress of him, Bowtell and Hunter this year, now two have gone elsewhere which is a shame. We started last year slowly, hopefully Bowdery and Locke can come on as the season progresses. Be very surprised if Priest maintains that kind of form too.