REACTION: PIRATES RAID THE BEARS WITH BEST PERFORMANCE OF THE SEASON

Northern team manager Gary Havelock oversaw a 'Goldilocks' performance from the Poole Pirates on Friday night as they raided the Redcar Bears, collecting all four league points with a dominant display that produced a 50-40 victory in their favour as all three heat leaders set the Pirates stall out and the Cook brothers added solid back up, all capped by some inspirational rides from reserve Drew Kemp.

A near voice-less Havelock admitted afterwards "It is an absolute honour to manage this Poole side that has such a strong heat-leader trio. They did everything you could expect of them and the team rode really well as a unit. I have lost my voice by shouting them on from the pits, what more can I say about them. A great performance and super result."

Poole promoter Dan Ford backed up Havvy's comments saying "I think we laid down a real marker to the league tonight. To come here and inflict such a solid victory on Redcar who have been unbeaten here this season was an absolutely incredible performance by all the boys. This was our best performance of the season so far and to do it here was just what the doctor ordered. I think this could be the start of a good run for us and sends out the clear message that we are the defending champions and we mean business and are not just going to relinquish that title easily. On a performance like tonight it is hard to pick out any outstanding individual rider. All the heat leaders did their job, the Cook boys rode fantastic in the second part, Ben not getting off to a particularly good start with a disqualification, but came good in the end. Drew was excellent at reserve once again and just when we needed him to step up he did so. Nathan (Ablitt) is still finding his feet and we are giving him all the time he needs to adjust to the rigours of Championship level racing and hopefully we will see him flourish very soon. All the boys are fully behind him and whilst I know he is very disappointed with his own result we will give him all the encouragement he needs."

Poole provided ten of the fifteen race winners and on four occasions the chequered flag taker was backed up by a team-mate to give the Pirates heat advantages as they restricted the home side to just two heat gains of their own. The four league points moves the Pirates up from a pre-meeting fifth place to third in the table, six points behind leaders Leicester but with three matches in hand over the Lions.

Scorers:
REDCAR 40 - Charles Wright 13 (2,2,3,3,3) ,Lewis Kerr 8 (2,2,3,1,0) ,Erik Riss 6+2 (0,3,1',1',1) ,Jason Edwards 5+1 (2,1',2,0) ,Kasper Andersen 4 (1,0,2,1) ,Jordan Jenkins 2+2 (1',1',0,0) ,Adam Roynon 2+1 (0,TS,1',1) 
POOLE 50 - Drew Kemp 10+2 (3,3,0,0,2',2') ,Richard Lawson 10+1 (3,3,3,0,1') ,Danny King 10+1 (3,1',2,2,2) ,Steven Worrall 8+1 (2',3,0,3) ,Zach Cook 7+1 (1,2,3,1') ,Ben Cook 5 (XE,0,2,3) ,Nathan Ablitt 0 (0,0,0)