Devils lose their number one
PLYMOUTH Skills Group Devils will go into this weekend's crucial Play Off Quarter Final encounter against the Glasgow Tigers on Friday 2nd at St Boniface Arena (7.15pm) and Sunday 4th October away without their experienced number one rider Ryan Fisher.
"Due to family business Ryan has had to return home to the USA" said The Devils Co-Promoter Ashley Taylor. "Ryan and his wife Daelyn run a small business in their home town Henderson near Las Vegas, unfortunately a key member of staff left at the beginning of September which caused a significant problem for his wife in the running of the business, she soldiered on allowing Ryan to complete all his league fixtures with Plymouth.
Immediately after the Rye House meeting Ryan caught the first available flight back home. It was hoped that during the enforced break before our first playoff meeting the staff situation would be resolved and Ryan would be able to return and complete his fixtures for Plymouth. Unfortunately, the staff situation has not been resolved and Ryan is not able to return.
The Devils will now resort to using rider replacement for Ryan and use the guest facility for Todd Kurtz who suffered a knee ligament injury against Scunthorpe in a crash with Alex Davies on 10th September and has been ruled out of action for the remainder of the season.
Kevin Doolan will be the guest for Todd on Friday. The normal arrangement would be for Plymouth to arrange a guest replacement for their absent No.1 and use the rider replacement facility to cover for Kurtz. However, the new averages in operation for October are not working out too favourably for the Devils as far as Kurtz is concerned.
Taylor says: "Todd is now down to No.5 in our averages and the replacement facility would restrict us to using skipper Kyle Newman and the two reserves to cover the replacement rides. "So it is going to make sense for us to bring in a guest to cover for Todd and then use rider replacement for Ryan at No.1, which will mean the remainder of our team can take the additional rides."
Taylor went onto say "As always Plymouth will be riding for a successful outcome and a place in the semi-finals against our local rivals Somerset Rebels who we have beaten both home and away already this season in the league". "In the event of us not making it through to the next stage, we would not want our season to end with an away meeting, so we would make sure of staging a home fixture with an individual meeting at the Arena on Friday October 9," said Taylor
Team Line Ups for Ftiday
PLYMOUTH SKILLS GROUP DEVILS: 1 Ryan Fisher R/R, 2 Morten Risager, 3 Jack Holder, 4 Kevin Doolan (G), (for Todd Kurtz) 5 Kyle Newman (c), 6 Sam Simota, 7 Linus Eklof.
GLASGOW ALLIED VEHICLES TIGERS: 1 Richard Lawson, 2 Victor Palovaara, 3 Nick Morris, 4 Kauko Nieminen, 5 Aaron Summers (c), 6 James Sarjeant, 7 Hynek Stichauer
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