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Premier League Absences And The New Elite Priority Rule


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I was looking at this weeks Star and with nothing on TV and an hour to spare, I decided to see how many times a Premier match for the club I support would have a rider missing from either my team or the visiting team due to the Elite having rider priority this season. Of course we know the fixtures will change and things may be better or they may be worse, but looking at the current fixture list, and I cannot guarantee I have not made some mistakes, but,

 

Our number one will be missing for 9 matches, 6 home and 3 away.

There are 13 matches in total where a rider will be missing either from my team or the visiting team, 8 home matches and 5 away.

 

Absent riders will be:

 

Ryan Fisher will miss 1 match

Ricky Wells will miss 3 matches

Ben Barker will miss 3 matches

Josh Grajczonek will miss 1 match

Kyle Newman will miss 2 matches

Nick Morris will miss 9 matches

 

Four of these matches will have 2 riders absent, and one will have 3 absent.

 

We used to moan about guests for injured riders!!!

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I was looking at this weeks Star and with nothing on TV and an hour to spare, I decided to see how many times a Premier match for the club I support would have a rider missing from either my team or the visiting team due to the Elite having rider priority this season. Of course we know the fixtures will change and things may be better or they may be worse, but looking at the current fixture list, and I cannot guarantee I have not made some mistakes, but,

 

Our number one will be missing for 9 matches, 6 home and 3 away.

There are 13 matches in total where a rider will be missing either from my team or the visiting team, 8 home matches and 5 away.

 

Absent riders will be:

 

Ryan Fisher will miss 1 match

Ricky Wells will miss 3 matches

Ben Barker will miss 3 matches

Josh Grajczonek will miss 1 match

Kyle Newman will miss 2 matches

Nick Morris will miss 9 matches

 

Four of these matches will have 2 riders absent, and one will have 3 absent.

 

We used to moan about guests for injured riders!!!

 

How many would Ty Proctor have missed.

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Ben Barker will miss no PL meetings.

 

What is a joke is that tonight at Eastbourne Barker can ride for his EL club rather than his PL club but Kennett has to ride for his PL club. There no consistency. I accept the PL takes priority over the EL, thats the rule but how the hell does a PL challenge take priority over an EL meeting for Kennett?

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Ben Barker will miss no PL meetings.

 

What is a joke is that tonight at Eastbourne Barker can ride for his EL club rather than his PL club but Kennett has to ride for his PL club. There no consistency. I accept the PL takes priority over the EL, thats the rule but how the hell does a PL challenge take priority over an EL meeting for Kennett?

So rye house arrange a season opener against a local rival. Good plan considering Len Silver coughed up the money for a new airfence without going round with the begging bowl and was looking to get a decent crowd. Had we not used Kennett and Simon Lambert the team we would have tracked would have included R/R for Bunyan and Two guests. Season opener or not the crowd would have been well down. Completely unfair to the PL clubs who continually prop up their EL counterparts and enough is enough. This is a farce that will continue all season with the likes of Jason Garrity bought and paid for by Len Silver who then signs up with Coventry a Friday track with four PL clubs also running On Fridays two of which are also in the same PL Cup section. Irrespective of challenge matches that is a total of seven friday meetings for Garrity as we also have Somerset twice in the PL. Of course should we beat Glasgow in the cup there is a potential for more friday meetings to follow. A shambolic meeting at Eastbourne but hardly the fault of Len Silver who is rightly protecting his business
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This is a farce that will continue all season with the likes of Jason Garrity bought and paid for by Len Silver who then signs up with Coventry a Friday track with four PL clubs also running On Fridays two of which are also in the same PL Cup section. Irrespective of challenge matches that is a total of seven friday meetings for Garrity as we also have Somerset twice in the PL. Of course should we beat Glasgow in the cup there is a potential for more friday meetings to follow.

 

What, exactly, is your point? As you say, Jason is a Rye House asset and will therefore ride for Rye House in all official fixtures. Irrespective of that, there's no way that last night's knockabout should have taken precedence over a league match.

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So rye house arrange a season opener against a local rival. Good plan considering Len Silver coughed up the money for a new airfence without going round with the begging bowl and was looking to get a decent crowd. Had we not used Kennett and Simon Lambert the team we would have tracked would have included R/R for Bunyan and Two guests. Season opener or not the crowd would have been well down. Completely unfair to the PL clubs who continually prop up their EL counterparts and enough is enough. This is a farce that will continue all season with the likes of Jason Garrity bought and paid for by Len Silver who then signs up with Coventry a Friday track with four PL clubs also running On Fridays two of which are also in the same PL Cup section. Irrespective of challenge matches that is a total of seven friday meetings for Garrity as we also have Somerset twice in the PL. Of course should we beat Glasgow in the cup there is a potential for more friday meetings to follow. A shambolic meeting at Eastbourne but hardly the fault of Len Silver who is rightly protecting his business

Can't Rye House race on their alternative race night a few times?

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Ben Barker will miss no PL meetings.

 

What is a joke is that tonight at Eastbourne Barker can ride for his EL club rather than his PL club but Kennett has to ride for his PL club. There no consistency. I accept the PL takes priority over the EL, thats the rule but how the hell does a PL challenge take priority over an EL meeting for Kennett?

Is Barker a Plymouth asset? Because he was absent on Saturday and would have been absent for the cancelled match at Somerset on Friday?

 

I had Barker riding for Birmingham on following dates:

 

LC April 18th Plymouth away to Somerset, Birmingham at home to Kings Lynn

PL June 21st Plymouth at home to Somerset, Birmingham away to Eastbourne

PL July 25th Plymouth away to Somerset, Birmingham away to Lakeside

Edited by oldtimer
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Is Barker a Plymouth asset? Because he was absent on Saturday and would have been absent for the cancelled match at Somerset on Friday?

 

I had Barker riding for Birmingham on following dates:

 

LC April 18th Plymouth away to Somerset, Birmingham at home to Kings Lynn

PL June 21st Plymouth at home to Somerset, Birmingham away to Eastbourne

PL July 25th Plymouth away to Somerset, Birmingham away to Lakeside

Barker is a Coventry asset so Plymouths PL meetings take priority.

 

The only reason he was due to miss Friday and did miss yesterday is that they were challenge meetings so the official meetings take priority (unless Rye House are involved - God knows how that one works!)

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Elite League causing trouble to Premier League Teams already. :mad: :mad: :mad:

 

No surprise there then. :mad: :mad:

Elite League causing trouble to Premier League Teams already. :mad: :mad: :mad:

 

No surprise there then. :mad: :mad:

EL and PL could work together to share the burden of doubling up!!
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Completely unfair to the PL clubs who continually prop up their EL counterparts and enough is enough.

 

This is a farce that will continue all season with the likes of Jason Garrity bought and paid for by Len Silver who then signs up with Coventry a Friday track with four PL clubs also running On Fridays two of which are also in the same PL Cup section. Irrespective of challenge matches that is a total of seven friday meetings for Garrity as we also have Somerset twice in the PL.

 

If you are going to have a rant, make sure you get your facts right first. Garrity will miss no matches for Rye House to ride for Coventry. He is a Rye House asset, so their fixtures take priority.

 

To be honest, this train of thought that the EL is being propped up by the PL is a load of utter nonsense. Sure the draft riders are pretty much all PL riders and, without the draft, they would probably not have had the opportunity to ride EL and therefore no fixtures to clash against. However, rather than seeing it as PL propping up the EL, it should be seen as the EL giving these riders the opportunity to better themselves.

 

The crux of the matter is that the doubling up rule has allowed the PL to become artificially strong and retain their top riders who, under normal circumstances, would have progressed out of the PL into the EL years ago. As far as the PL 'top stars' are concerned it is the EL that is providing the PL with their top riders and have done for years. To add insult to injury, up until this year, the PL has had first call on their services too. It was always an utter nonsense that lower league fixtures should ever take priority over top league fixtures. At least this year, the EL has seen some recompense in this state of affairs, although not enough in my opinion. Kennett, for example, is the asset of an EL club, so, as an EL rider first and foremost, I believe he should have to prioritise his Birmimgham fixtures over his Rye House ones. The same for Ben Barker, who remains a Coventry asset.

 

As far as the top PL riders are concerned (the PL 'box office' riders) it is the EL which is propping the PL up. Without doubling up, it is my opinion that:

 

Cook would have chosen Belle Vue over Edinburgh

Richie Worrall would have chosen Belle Vue over Newcastle (especially being as he is a Belle Vue asset)

Fisher would have chosen Coventry over Peterborough

Barker would have chosen Bimingham over Plymouth

Lawson would have chosen Lakeside over Redcar

Kennett would have chosen Birmingham over Rye House

Morris would have chosen Swindon over Somerset (and did before Somerset re-signed him)

Grajczonek would have chosen Poole over Workington

Wells would have chosen Wolverhampton over Workington

 

You've also got to look at Josh Auty who has doubled up for a few years now and wonder what decisions he might have made had he been forced to choose between EL and PL a few years ago. Obviously Josh wanted to double-up again this year but (as far as I can see) did not fit into the team plans of any EL club when they were putting their teams together (although I suspect we'll see him and Ashley Birks doubling up at some stage this season). I wonder whether any EL clubs would have taken Josh this season on a non-doubling-up basis and what his decision would have been then.

 

Then, of course, there is the example of Jason Doyle who, when forced to choose between his EL club and his PL club, chose to sign for the EL club (for whom he has no real affinity to, having never rode for them before) over the PL club with whom he won the league (and other trophies) last year.

 

Also we must consider the Nick Morris case. Obviously there was a little speculation at the time over whether he would move on from Swindon when Somerset initially released him. But we all know that this was in order to enable him to ride both EL and PL rather than EL only. He was never going to opt out of the EL to ride PL.

 

I have never been a fan of the doubling up rule other than as a one-season arrangement to help aspiring riders move from PL to EL (as, for example, it did for Chris Harris in 2003 when he had one season doubling up with Trelawney and Peterborough before moving to Coventry full time in 2004).

 

In my opinion, the doubling up rule has been a farce since it was extended a few seasons ago. And it's generally favoured the PL.

 

But, I say again, the idea that the EL is propping the PL up is nonsense. All that's happened is that riders who reach a certain level can now have their cake and eat it rather than taking the common sense route of reaching a certain level plying their trade in the lower league before stepping up to a better one in order to better themselves as a rider.

 

 

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It's pretty obvious the doubling up thing has now spiralled out of control . It really has to be looked at again because from one week to the next we dont know who's going to be riding for who .

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