Express & Star

Play-off system just fine for owner

Wolves boss Chris Van Straaten has just one message about the play-off system - don't change it next time.

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This season's set-up has suffered a chequered year, with the British Speedway Promoters Association initially planning an unwieldy post-season shootout involving six clubs.

That was trimmed to four in mid-season, with the league's top team getting its choice of opponents and eight points' start over the tie. Runners-up were given a four-point advantage.

Consolation for the third and fourth-placed sides was that the clashes were run over two legs, at last giving them the chance of a lucrative home gate.

The handicapping has divided supporters, but the Parrys International Wolves owner is convinced it is now right.

He said: "I think it was a fair compromise. The credibility of the sport would have suffered, in my opinion, if somebody 20-odd points behind had come through to win the league on a couple of matches.

"So if they do it on that principle, they've got to be a very, very good team. It's relatively fair – they've had an eight-point handicap and they've still come through.

"But this was the first step for the teams finishing third or fourth who never had a chance to have a home leg. Don't decry that.

"Miracles can happen. Swindon hung on by their shirt tails in their semi-final and, who knows what might have happened, if Coventry had been more on the ball in the first half-dozen races at Brandon?"

The emergence of Swindon and Wolves, who finished first and second in the table, to contest the play-off final encourages Van Straaten that the system should stay.

He said: "I think the system is correct, but we're a democratic sport and I only have one voice. But I think we would be wrong to change it.

"We tend to do that so often in speedway – have a rule a year, and somebody doesn't like it, and we get rid of it. And it is a mistake."

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