GRAND FINAL - POOLE v LEICESTER

Scheduled to be the first of the two-legged final, this meeting was postponed 24 hours ahead of its planned staging due to a near-waterlogged track and an adverse weather forecast that was suggesting further heavy rainfall throughout the day.

The meeting has been rescheduled for Wednesday 26th October 2022 at 7.30pm and will now be the concluding leg of the Grand Final.

 Poole go head-to-head with the side that topped the league table ahead of the play-offs, the Leicester Lions.

The two clubs met at the semi-final stage of last season's play-offs with the Pirates completing the double over the East Midlanders to gain an aggregate 98-82 victory and they also met in the Knockout cup semi-finals with the Pirates registering a 96-84 triumph. In both competitions they went on to be crowned champions. 

Just last week the Pirates successfully defended their cup title having previously beaten Leicester (again in the semi-finals) which set up the final against the Redcar Bears. 

But whilst the recent record falls in favour of the Pirates this season's play-off final seems delicately balanced, and team manager Neil Middleditch is under no illusions just how tough things will be for the Pirates. "You can be sure that they are still smarting from that 60-30 thrashing we gave them in the KO cup a couple of weeks ago. They are no mugs and they are going to want to come down here  and will be going out for revenge. The important thing for us is to get a lead on Friday to take with us for the second leg as you can guarantee that they will be doing something to the track for us. That could backfire on them as they could prepare a track that they think will mess it up for us, but they could mess it up for their own riders too. Of course we will try and get our track on Friday prepared in a way that our riders like it, we didn't quite have that in the cup final when Redcar were here, and whilst we did enough to finish the job and rode within ourselves it will be important for us to put on a better performance this week. We recognise that the weather had a bearing on conditions last week, but we will let Terry our track curator know how we would like it. Danny (King) is going to have a chat with him and hopefully if the weather is reliable then we can get it to something more like we are happy with it. But whatever happens we will be going out there and battling for every point. We need to make it as difficult as possible for Leicester as we know they want this title as much as we do."

Lions' captain and former Pirate Kyle Howarth, who performs so well around both circuits, will have added impulse to want to lift the trophy after losing out with his Premiership side Sheffield, when they were beaten by Belle Vue. 

Leicester have already pledged to be leaving the SGB Championship in 2023 as they step back into Premiership racing and to close out their three season-spell in the second tier, during which they have achieved the league title once, back in 2019 before handing it over to the Pirates in 2021.

But the Pirates are equally as hungry to claim their second major piece of silverware this season and what would be their fourth title since stepping down to the SGB Championship ahead of the abandoned 2020 campaign.

Friday teams:
Poole: 1 Danny King (Capt); 2 Ben Cook; 3 Steve Worrall; 4 Drew Kemp; 5 Richard Lawson; 6 Zach Cook; 7 Nathan Ablitt - Team manager Neil Middleditch
Leicester: 1 Nick Morris; 2 Connor Mountain; 3 Richie Worrall; 4 Kyle Howarth (Capt); 5 Dan Thompson; 6 Max Clegg; 7  Joe Thompson - Team manager Stewart Dickson