PREVIEW: PIRATES HEAD TO SECOND CITY TO BEGIN LEAGUE CAMPAIGN

Poole face their first opportunity of 2022 to post some league points on the board when they travel to second city Birmingham on Wednesday (13th April) to launch their league campaign.

The Pirates have already had a solid start to their knockout cup defence by eliminating Plymouth and now the focus switches to retaining the Championship title they won last season. It is a little over six months since the Pirates last rode at Perry Barr and the Birmingham Brummies have seen some turbulent times since then, with only a last ditch consortium bid being able to bring them to the tapes for 2022.

Looking ahead to the meeting, Poole promoter Dan Ford said "I think I probably speak for many in speedway when I say it is good that Birmingham have been saved, after all the issues they endured last year. It was one of three tracks where we failed to pick up a point last season. It wasn't really our night on that visit, but only lost by eight so hopefully we can improve on that this time around and get our league campaign off to a  decent start."

The top three Poole scorers from that visit last September - Danny King (14), Steve Worrall (11) and Ben Cook (6+1) have all returned for the Pirates this season whilst they will be in opposition to Stefan Nielsen who saw his 2021 campaign end early after an opening heat crash.

Now recovered from the injury that cost him his place at Poole, he now occupies a reserve berth for  the Brummies who have former Pirate Adam Ellis as their second heat leader,  which means two British champions will be up against each other, as Poole skipper King held the title way back in 2016 and Ellis clinched the crown as recent as last season.

Birmingham lost the services of former Poole ridder James Shanes at the weekend when he sustained concussion after a crash grasstrack meeting and so will endure a nine-day period on the sidelines. They will operate rider replacement to cover his outings.

The Pirates will follow up their trip to the Midlands with a home meeting on Good Friday (April 15th) against league newcomers Oxford with a start time of 7.30pm, before returning to the Midlands on Easter Saturday to face Leicester and then are away again next Wednesday (April 20th) when they contest the corresponding league meeting at Oxford.