DANNY Ford declared himself "happy" with the new team building regulations announced by British Speedway this week.

A statement from the governing body explained the restrictions clubs in the top two divisions will face as they look to finalise their septets for the 2022 campaign.

For Championship league and cup winners Pirates, it sees a shift to having to build to a 42-point limit for their seven riders, as opposed to the 'Rising Star' scheme which was implemented last year, which will instead now be in place in the Premiership.

Asked for his thoughts on the rules as Poole look to assemble a side to retain their two trophies next year, promoter Ford told the Daily Echo: "Happy. It’s what we wanted.

"Very little in terms of restrictions, which I think was very important, particularly for the Championship.

"We’re more of a feeder league to the Premiership, so any riders that we can bring into our league, it only benefits the Premiership as well.

"So it was important that there was no restrictions on what we had to do in terms of team building and bringing in the new riders. So very happy."

Discussing how much it will change how things looked this year, Ford explained: "It’s not hugely different and it’s probably actually a very similar actual total of points.

"Because last year we could build up to 38 on the one-to-six and then you could’ve had a three-star Rising Star. If you built up to 39, you could have a two-star Rising Star. So it’s almost exactly the same in terms of points limit really."

Teams across the country have this week begun to announce their new-look line-ups for the 2022 campaign.

But Pirates have as yet kept their cards close to their chest, little over a week on from winning the play-off final against Glasgow Tigers.

"You have to start planning very early on," said Ford.

"A few more bits have started to fall into place this week, so I think within the next few weeks or next month certainly, we’ll start making announcement for our line-up for 2022.

"The team spirit this year, I genuinely think it was maybe the best we’ve ever had throughout the full one-to-seven.

"Obviously this is speedway - team changes are part of the sport. It’s heartbreaking, points limits make it impossible to keep the same one-to-seven.

"Particularly if you want to be competitive next year, you’ve got to look for improvements in that one-to-seven and that means making changes unfortunately.

"We’re hoping to have some familiar names within the team, but there will certainly be some changes. Hopefully ones the fans are happy with."

Asked how soon fans could expect announcements, Ford added: "We are very close. We just want to get a few more things put into place before doing that. But our supporters don’t need to panic.

"We are working on things. We won’t be left with the scraps, certainly not. That was the fear I know a lot of supporters had looking back to when we were building the team for 2020, they thought that we would be left with the leftovers.

"But we were working in the background, we just hadn’t made the announcements as early as some other teams.

"And that team pretty much went on to win the title.

"So it is all working in the background, just waiting for the final pieces to fall into place. Once they do, team news will be on the way."