There
has to be some way of regulating team strengths, this is widely acknowledged.
But the
process of team building and the use of averages in my view is
becoming too complex.
It does
somehow seem wrong to me that winning teams are penalised due to their success
and consequent high average. The positive side may be that in forcing riders to
move, other teams have a chance of winning something. At its most negative
riders are frozen out, having to wait until a team place becomes available.
The
team building at the beginning of the season also can become a farce. It seems
the only riders guaranteed a place albeit for six matches, are the three point
“cannon fodder” that are granted a team place purely because they have an
average that fits. It then seems that riders can also be penalised by not being
able to return to the team they were with the previous season unless they were
declared in the starting seven - another little known rule that appeared to be
introduced during the close season.
It does seem to be somewhat unfair that a
rider finds himself without a team place because he improved his average by
around 1 or 2 points the previous season. He may only be half a point too high
to get a team place and then has to sit it out on the sidelines until the team
average falls or there is an injury. This really does little to promote the
best interests of the sport.
Why are
we so hung up about averages anyway ? They are only
indicative of a rider’s ability and to me to quote them to 1/100 of a point is
nonsense. It’s not possible to score less than a ˝ point anyway and this
doesn’t happen that often.
It’s
incredible to think that a rider cannot be included in a team due to him having
an average slightly higher than some academic figure quoted to two decimal
places. Although a guest rider situation, the recent Kings Lynn/Eastbourne
incident highlights the problem. Realistically what difference does 1/100 of a
point make to an average ? I know rules is rules and
in this case they were applied strictly – a little unnerving given the way some
of the others seem to be ignored. In this particular incident speedway as a
whole was the loser; too many incidents of this nature and all the recent good
work in raising the sports profile will be lost.
The
system governing team strengths I think has to be more flexible and
straightforward. Instead this year it appears to be getting more complicated in
as much as riders have at least three official averages (home, away, team
building etc) where is this taking us ?
Perhaps
a grading system would be better. Each team is broadly speaking made up of
three heat leaders, two second strings and two reserves. If riders were
classified as such it wouldn’t really matter what their actual average was. If
riders improve sufficiently they would move up a class. I am under no illusion
that someone would be able to exploit a loophole to their advantage but this
holds true for any system. No system is perfect.
In
simplistic terms heat leaders averages could be in a range 7.0- 12.0, second
strings 5.0-7.0 and reserves below 5.0. Maybe there might also be a restriction
on star men in as much as each team is only allowed one heat leader with an
average in excess of 9.50 or there be a total allowed average for the three
heat leaders of around 25. In any event it would make the whole system far
easier to understand.
Taking
it a step further it could be argued that a heat leader from the Premier League
would be comparable to an Elite second string and vice versa for guest rider
purposes. A move to reduce the number of guests utilised from teams in the same
league has to be a major step forward – its seems to
be one of the hardest things for people outside of the sport to understand …………
but that’s another story.
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