SILVERWARE SEEKING PIRATES PREPARE FOR FIRST OF FOUR SCOTTISH MEETINGS

The Pirates are preparing for the first of four matches against Scottish opponents when they head to Armadale, Edinburgh on Saturday afternoon (2.30pm), for the first leg of the Knockout Cup Final. 
 

Having knocked out Plymouth back in July and then received a walk-over after their quarter-final opponents Eastbourne withdrew, the Pirates secured their place in the final with victory over Leicester, whilst Edinburgh have eliminated Newcastle, Birmingham and Glasgow on the way, the latter after a superb second leg thrashing of the Tigers that saw them overturn a sixteen point first leg deficit. 

That in itself is a major indicator to the Pirates that it will be no easy task on Saturday, although if they can deliver a performance similar to that produced in their league visit almost two months ago it would set up a great night at Wimborne Road next Wednesday. 

Poole won that league meeting by ten points a meeting that stand-in team manager Gary Havelock described as the "best night he had experienced whilst managing Poole." That victory came against a Monarchs side without the services of ex-Pirate Richie Worrall who was injured at the time, but he is back now and will be facing his brother, Steve, who has been a Pirate revelation in 2021, as Dan Ford acknowledges. 

"Steve has been simply superb all season long and I know how much it would mean to him to if we could achieve the double this year. But first thing's first and we need to focus on trying to win the Knockout Cup which would be a great achievement if we could do that. Edinburgh will have a done a lot of racing by Saturday as it is due to be their third meeting in as many days, as they try to get their play-off semi-final completed. For our lads, although Rory, Danny, Ben and Danyon all rode in Schleiny's Farewell meeting on Monday, there will have been plenty of time off the bike since our last competitive match last Saturday. Whether that will work for or against us remains to be seen, but what we do know is that we are going to have to improve on the gating we showed last Wednesday at Wimborne Road and put in a showing just as we did at Leicester." 

Ford concluded with a message to the Poole fans who had hoped to have travelled by coach to this final, saying "Despite our intentions unfortunately there will not be an organised coach trip for Saturday. The uncertainty about the fixture date, coupled with the early start time have made this impossible to achieve. However, the meeting will be live streamed and details of how to purchase will be on the Edinburgh website. Looking further ahead, we hope to be able to offer a coach for the first leg of the play-off final although this too may prove to be unachievable given the quick turn round from completion of the second semi-final." 

Poole have one change from the semi-final septet with Glasgow's Connor Bailey stepping in as guest replacement for injured Stefan Nielsen.  

Teams: 
Edinburgh: 1 Sam Masters; 2 Anders Rowe; 3 Kye Thomson; 4 Josh Pickering; 5 Richie Worrall; 6 Drew Kemp; 7 Jason Edwards (Guest). Team manager Alex Harkess 
Poole: 1 Steve Worrall; 2 Danyon Hume; 3 Rory Schlein; 4 Ben Cook; 5 Danny King; 6 Connor Bailey (Guest); 7 Ben Basso. Team manager Gary Havelock