Eastbourne Eagles V Belle Vue Colts 14/10/2017

[sussex bulldog]

Eastbourne Speedway’s date with destiny is on Saturday when they face the Belle Vue Colts in the first leg of the National League Play Offs.


he IT First Eagles meet the Manchester club home and away to decide who will have the honour of being this year’s champions.

Saturday’s match is at Eastbourne’s Arlington Stadium, which is just outside Hailsham, off the A22, and begins at 7.30pm.

Eastbourne made it through to the final by finishing in the top four of the regular season and then defeating the Kent Kings in one of the semi-finals – the Colts beating Lakeside at the same stage.

The Eagles will welcome back Jake Knight to the team.

He was banned from the last two home matches after missing the National League Riders’ Championship at Leicester when he had no equipment to ride.

Belle Vue are led by one of the country’s up-and-coming prospects, Dan Bewley, who has wowed crowds across Britain in the last two years with his spectacular style.

Eastbourne will be hoping to make it third time lucky when it comes to the league, having finished runners-up in 2015, when there was no Play Off system, and were defeated last year by Birmingham in the Play Off Final.

They will be without Charley Powell, who has a prior commitment, and will use a rule, known as rider replacement, to cover his four rides.

Tom Brennan (one ride) and reserves Drew Kemp and Mattie Bates are likely to share the other three.

Team manager Connor Dugard said before a wheel was turned this season that the Colts would be favourites for the title and accepts his Eagles are underdogs over the two legs – the return fixture is at the National Speedway Stadium next Wednesday (October 18).

He said: “We are expecting a great night of speedway on Saturday and hope the crowd really gets behind the lads to create a brilliant atmosphere.

“The whole team is up for it and hopefully we can go one better than last year.
“Obviously, we want to build a lead to take into the second leg and that’s what will be working to do.”

Eastbourne: Josh Bailey, Charley Powell R/R, Georgie Wood, Tom Brennan, Jake Knight, Drew Kemp, Mattie Bates.

Belle Vue Colts: Dan Bewley, Kyle Bickley, Lee Payne R/R, Rob Shuttleworth, Jack Smith, Andy Mellish, Luke Woodhull.

*Sandwiched between the two play off matches is Eastbourne’s final match of the regular season, away to Cradley, which has twice been postponed.

[Islander15]

Wheres Powell then?

[Gunner85]

Coming down to the meeting.

 

A long time since I last went.

 

In the British league days it would be

Aces on Saturday night,....leave on the supporters coach at 2300 hrs.... arrive in Brighton ... kip on the beach... breakfast early morning....coach pick up to take us to Arlington early afternoon... fond memories

[stevec]

I thought there would be much more talk about this I must admit. I hope we dont get the same amount of interest at the stadiums. Would be nice for both promotions to get rewarded for putting good teams together by a bumper crowd.

 

For me, I think if Eastie can get a 20 point lead at Arlington, that would make BV very nervous. I, and I am sure many others Eagles fans have a hard choice to make Saturday night/Sunday morning and that's is there enough of a lead to make it worth the HORRIBLE journey to Manchester? 20 points or more, I am Manchester bound. Between 12 and 18, I really dont know. Its a heck of a long way to go to have any lead wiped out by about heat 7 or 8!

 

My prediction? I reckon Eagles will will by between 12 and 16 at home......leaving me with that hard choice to make!

 

Not sure what the crack is with Charlie? Certainly dont think it helps us with only Tom and the reserves able to take his rides, so not much there for the conspiracy theorists.

[TurnTwo]

I messaged him on Facebook he had booked a holiday Late last year and this was the only time his family could all go away

[ouch]

The Colts lost by 16 points last time. We had replacements for Dan, Jack, Rob & Lee and we got 26 points from those rides. I'm hoping for more this time with three of our own back but then again they have little experience of the Eastbourne circuit so it's hard to say if they will or not.

[Hunters]

Difficult one to call, The colts tail looked very weak last time with even Bickley only managing to beat Bates of the home side. Same applied to Mellish. Bates spent more time on the track than on his bike that night.

 

To keep a decent score the top three must all go well but all three have the extra r/r.

 

Really looking forward to seeing Dan Bewley for the first time but it is not guaranteed that he will be invincible even in the car park as someone said. You only have to look at the way Woffinden performed at Arlington, scores of 3,4,5 even conceded a 5-1 when wearing the Black & White T/R.

Jack Smith looked a real tiger in 2015 as Brum reserve but disappointed the following year with 12 from 13 rides despite getting 3 of them as the only finisher. Will his mastery of the NSS this year be transmitted to Arlington? big question.

Rob Shuttleworth has had one rather poor outing with Coventry Storm and will need to have improved considerably.

 

There is no doubt the eagles top four are going well with some impressive times less than 1 sec behind the Elite League average in 2014 so gating will be a larger than usual influence I suspect. If Bewley likes the track and gets his 18 then I would expect a 12 to 16 points home win with no chance of hanging on to it away. On the other hand if Bewley has a bit of a struggle adapting then it might be 20 points and at least give the colts something to think about in the second leg.

The motivation will certainly be there and should make for a very entertaining final.

[Gunner85]

The Colts have all the motivation they need.

 

Due to clashes they have had to go away with 2 or 3 riders missing whereby the scores have been depressed on what you would expect.

 

Great expectations from both sides

[ruckerroo]

Somehow belle vue got away with a 12pt defeat despite really only 2 of their side riding the track well.

 

The 20m tractor break was lunacy with the fog already descending.

 

Hope mellish is ok after his alarming wallop.

 

Eastie made too many little errors, leads 12 which aint enough, could and should have been 18-20.

 

Impressed with colts team ethic snd they can all gate

[Gunner85]

Mellish has a suspected broken leg.

 

Very disappointed with the racing.... riders on both sides struggling...

 

Without the long interval would probably have finished the meeting

[gazzac]

Well what a disappointing end to another league campaign. We drove through sea fog on the way to track so was pretty obvious early on in the meeting it was getting colder and the fog would get worse. There seemed no urgency getting the meeting through and the interval was ridiculous as by then it was really difficult to see across the track. May not have made any difference to the final gap but we'll never know now and 12 unfortunately won't be enough.

[mikec]

Somehow belle vue got away with a 12pt defeat despite really only 2 of their side riding the track well.

 

The 20m tractor break was lunacy with the fog already descending.

 

Hope mellish is ok after his alarming wallop.

 

Eastie made too many little errors, leads 12 which aint enough, could and should have been 18-20.

 

Impressed with colts team ethic snd they can all gate

Never had the look of a 12 point meeting did it Ruckeroo, I feared a 20 point defeat. Saying that, after a careful first ride from Bewley, on his first Arlington visit so fair enough, I thought he was good. If Colts go on & win the title they owe Kyle Bickley a big thank you, thought he was outstanding tonight, a 15 year old with a big future.

 

For Eagles I'm a big Tom Brennan fan, he was excellent tonight, smooth & quick. Him, Bickley & Jenkins will be wearing the junior GB colours in no time.

[Hunters]

I too thought 20+ was on until the disaster of heat 13 by Josh Bailey and the Fog. Now the second leg is a dead rubber.

 

Have to say I enjoyed seeing Dan Bewley and he brought the best out of the three heat leaders. When Wood beat him in 57.7 secs it was Georgies best time by almost a second and only .6 outside Adam Ellis track record. A few heats later Jake Knight repeated the result in 58.0 and it was his best ever time which says it all.

 

Shame about missing the last two heats as it proved crucial but they asked for it by holding an interval when fog started drifting under the lights at the North end for a while as early as Heat 6.

 

Hope Mellish is OK for next week and the weather holds up, there should be more good scraps with Bewley in the Cup.

[mikec]

Interesting post that Hunters, didn't realise how good those race times were. After heat 1 it was clear Bewley was keeping the Eagles heat leaders pretty honest. Dan should go really well next week, assuming Colts qualify, he tends to learn new tracks quickly. Enjoy him, he is really special in my opinion.

 

Was thinking, I've been to plenty of rain abandonments, that's my first fog abandonment in near 40 years of watching speedway. Has that happened before down here?

[waco]

Intervals are a pain in the neck at speedway ,, They drag meetings out..promoters seem to think they will make more money at their commercial outlets ,,but most fans hate them...This one looks like it could have cost Eastbourne a few vital points........With the fog what the hell were they thinking,,madness...

[gee jay]

might have picked up a few points in ht 14 but not enough to make any difference . i think it was ht 9 before we saw a red or blue helmet cover come out of bend 1 in front. plenty of fight in the side got us to a 12 point lead but they made it hard for themselves and i'm sorry but bates should never be coming 4th behind shuttleworth & woodhall when they were struggling themselves. if they gate like that in manchester 30 points wouldn't have been enough .

[cityrebel]

It's about time referees were given total control at meetings, especially regarding parades and intervals. Some promoters just carry on with no urgency regardless of the weather conditions.

Edited October 15, 2017 by cityrebel

[blueherb777]

It's about time referees were given total control at meetings, especially regarding parades and intervals. Some promoters just carry on with no urgency regardless of the weather conditions.

 

But this is Speedway.

Common sense goes out of the window.

Promoters never learn,same old mistakes.

I despair.

[gazzac]

might have picked up a few points in ht 14 but not enough to make any difference . i think it was ht 9 before we saw a red or blue helmet cover come out of bend 1 in front. plenty of fight in the side got us to a 12 point lead but they made it hard for themselves and i'm sorry but bates should never be coming 4th behind shuttleworth & woodhall when they were struggling themselves. if they gate like that in manchester 30 points wouldn't have been enough .

By that time I think the fog had started to affect races from heat 12, and having missed the gate Bates was going to struggle to pass. I think it's possible we could have had a bigger lead, or even with Bewley getting going potentially a smaller one. It's just the point that we will never know because of the slow running of the meeting especially the interval when it was obvious that the fog was filling in quickly . But you're right, think even if we had got a 16/20 point lead wouldn't have been enough, but at least we'd have come away having witnessed a good win instead of rushing to the car park to beat the queue getting out.

Edited October 15, 2017 by gazzac

[stevec]

Was a completely frustrating end to a pretty good meeting.

 

Why is it that I was talking to those with me, about the possibility of being 'fogged off' and yet there seemed no urgency from anyone that mattered to get on with it. I thought it quite refreshing when it was announced we were going to have a 'short' break but then we had to sit through the usual endless break and I even heard a couple of ironic cheers when the tractors finally pulled off the track. Maybe. like me, they thought that I 'fog off' is unlikely and it never crossed thier minds that the ref would call it off.

 

And why did he just call it off. I drive five minutes down the road and the fog was clear. Surely we should have had the 10 minute wait just to see if it lifted enough to get 2 minutes of racing in. 2 minutes.

 

And! Why WAS it called off? The ref could not see the whole track. TOUGH! The refs job is to make a judgement if there is a crash. Sometimes he is not best placed to make that judgement and often gets it wrong. So why not run these two extremely important races and just accept that he may have to make a difficult call. There was no health and safety reason to stop that meeting with two races to go.

 

And, the way it was announce annoyed me, so matter of fact. How about getting the ref and/or promotion on to explain.

 

I just hope that whatever the result is it is a bog win either way. I would hate for either team (but especially the Eagles) to loose by just a couple of points.

 

All in all this is ending up an extremely frustrating end to the season for me. Jake's ban, league cut off date, the elusive Charlie Saunders, and now this. Will I come again next year after all this? Well I have been since 1970, So yeh, most likely I will.

 

Rant over.