PLAY OFF FIVE-ONES

Anyone watching the recent streamed 2008 Play Off Grand Final second leg meeting between Poole and Lakeside, which we first streamed on Wednesday (29th April) night, will have witnessed the Pirates storm to four five-one heat advantages in the first five heats. 

In total that night the Pirates fired in seven maximum heat scores, which even after forty four play-off fixtures for the club, still remains the joint best total.

That matches the achievement of the 2004 triumph over Wolverhampton in the final and also subsequently the semi-final home leg against King's Lynn in 2011. In total Poole riders have finished first and second in a race 138 times in 657 play-off heats (the 2014 final at Coventry being abandoned with only twelve heats completed). By contrast, Pirates have found themselves on the wrong end of a maximum heat score in 94 races. Ironically, the most maximums conceded in a play-off meeting has also been seven and that too has happened three times - in the first ever play-off fixture against Coventry in 2002, the Wolverhampton semi-final second leg of 2016 and of course, last season's semi-final second leg against Ipswich, all of which of course were away matches. Masterminding the very final one of those was of course our 2020 club skipper Danny King in heat 13 of that meeting.

The best sequence of Poole maximums came last season in the home leg against Ipswich when the meeting came to its climax with five successive Poole 5-1s from heat eleven. 

In total 47 different riders have been part of a Pirates' 5-1 in the play-offs with Chris Holder topping the charts having been involved in 35 of those 138. That is 11 more than his 'buddy' Darcy Ward (24) who in turn out-frequents Bjarne Pedersen who rode in 16 maximum heat advantages at the business end of the season.

The other 44 are - Josh Grajczonek (15); Maciej Janowski, Kyle Newman (14); Dave Watt, Tomas H Jonasson, Nicolai Klindt (9); Magnus Zetterstrom, Daniel Davidsson (8); Antonio Lindback, Krzysztof Kasprzak, Paul Starke, Brady Kurtz (6); Leigh Adams, Piotr Pawlicki, Kacper Woryna (5); Tony Rickardsson, Matej Ferjan, Greg Hancock, Kacper Gomolski, Frederik Jakobsen, Chris Harris, Jack Holder, Ales Dryml, Artur Mroczka, Dennis Andersson (4); Adam Skornicki, Vaclav Milik, Richie Worrall, Freddie Eriksson, Przemyslaw Pawlicki (3); Ryan Sullivan, Leon Madsen, Kevin Wolbert, Ricky Wells, Troy Batchelor, Edward Kennett, Adam Ellis (2); Ludvig Lindgren, Craig Cook, Krzysztof Buczkowski, Hans Andersen, Nick Morris, Nico Covatti, Kyle Howarth (1). 

Chris's achievement of clocking up a play-off 5-1 for Poole on those 35 occasions was done so with twelve different partners, though no fewer than ten time did the "Turbo Twins! prevail. His other leading partners were Dave Watt, Magnus Zetterstrom and Dennis Andersson with four a piece, and Piotr Pawlicki three times.

It won't come as too much of a surprise, probably, to learn that the rider who has achieved the most maximum heat gains AGAINST the Pirates is Chris Harris, with 11 to his name. In total, seventy-two different riders have been involved in inflicting the pain of a 5-1 on a Poole rider, including it should be said, sixteen riders who are included in the list above .
 
Poole have recorded a 5-1 in every heat number, with heat 13 being the most productive; a total of 15 maximum scores coming from a pre-penultimate heat that has been ridden, whilst the Pirates have kick started a play-off meeting with a first and second finish on 13 occasions.