POOLE Pirates chief Matt Ford insists he is happy with the new Elite League team-building limits – despite facing the prospect of losing two riders for 2015.

Top-flight clubs are restricted as to who they can track based on the average scores of individual riders over a two-year period or their past 28 league meetings.

Promoters this month agreed to lift the threshold for the top five positions from 32 to 34 for next season, a move that will allow every team except Poole Pirates to retain their teams should they wish to.

But Ford, who expects to start naming his 2015 team “over the next couple of weeks”, is content with the change, despite having to trim 1.69 points from Pirates' average.

Ford told the Daily Echo: “We are almost definitely going to have to let two of ours go but I cannot complain. I appreciate the rules are set to give us a fair league and it is a familiar situation for us.

“The team is going to have to change because we finished close to 36 but all-in-all, I have to say the increase was reasonably substantial and with the bottom end of our team being much stronger this time, I feel fairly relaxed about it all.

“It is a good increase compared with what we have had in the past. Quite astonishingly, it has meant that King’s Lynn, who were dominant all year, could keep their one-to-five which I have never known happen before.”

Suspended captain Darcy Ward finished the season on 8.70 while stand-in skipper Maciej Janowski amassed 7.50.

Shamek Pawlicki finished on 6.75 but second-stringers Josh Grajczonek (6.40) and Vaclav Milik (6.34) increased their averages by more than two points in 2014.

  • Ford will field questions from on the latest from speedway’s hierarchy at next week’s Riders’ Equipment Fund function. 

The event, the first of this closed season, will be held in the Champs Bar at Poole Stadium on Wednesday, December 3 with doors opening at 7pm for a 7.30pm start. 

On the agenda will be the shale sport’s recent annual general meeting and the result of the fast track draft draw.

Entry costs £5 per person with teams limited to between four and six people.