REACTION: MIXED FEELINGS FOR COOK BOYS AS PIRATES WIN AGAIN

A paid eleven return from second string Ben Cook helped secure another home win for the Poole Pirates who have now gone unbeaten in twenty three performances at Wimborne Road, and the Aussie did it in style with an astonishing second lap in heat fourteen as he picked off two-times Italian Champion Michele 'Paco' Castagna and then free-scoring guest reserve Jason Edwards .

His overall performance, in Poole's 49-41 win over Edinburgh,  secured him the Rider of the Night accolade and afterwards admitted, "that was a good night for me. I did it the hard way in heat fourteen but three points is three points  and yeah, it was good and I am learning every week. It was nice too to share in the 5-1 with Stevie (Worrall) over Sam Masters as he is in incredible form this season and he's not dropping many points, so to get one over him feels pretty good, and  Picko (Josh Pickering) is no slouch either, he's improved this year so yeah, it's always good to get one over the Aussie boys, I've just got to make sure I can do it the finals when they come around."

Whilst one half of the Cook boys was celebrating, the other, Zach was counting up the cost of a frustrating night. He finished with a four point score, but it could well have been seven as he had done all the hard work in heat ten to get to the front with skipper Danny King when his bike just gave out. "It was a pretty costly blown engine to be honest" he admitted, "it's always the same in speedway, the big blow outs always seem to happen when you're in the points. I am going to have to send that one away now for a huge rebuild and am looking at a hefty bill for that. It's frustrating."

Steve Worrall again top scored for the Pirates and Richard Lawson added another double figure score to his Poole career as the Dorset side overcame the stubborn Monarchs, who relied heavily on Masters, Pickering and Edwards for the majority of their points. 

The Pirates might well have come through this meeting with an even healthier margin of victory, but influential reserve Drew Kemp suffered a nasty fall in heat eight as he was hunting down Edwards. Kemp locked up around the first turn during the chase and fell awkwardly. Although he was able to appear for two more outings he looked far from comfortable on the machine, team manager Neil Middleditch revealing, "Drew winded himself as he went down and suffered a bit of a gash on his hand, it could have been a lot lot worse, but he came out again and wanted to give it a go but obviously he wasn't 100% and so we didn't see the true Drew in his last two rides."

The Pirates regroup in a week's time when they host the visit of fellow league pacesetters Leicester in what promised to be an epic showdown at Wimborne Road. The Lions won comfortably at Birmingham (38-52) , not quite as emphatic as Poole managed last week, and the four point haul they collected gives them a one-point lead at the top of the table although they have ridden a match more than Poole  at this stage. 

POOLE 49 ,Steve Worrall 13 (3,2,3,3,2) ,Richard Lawson 10 (2,3,2,3,0) ,Ben Cook 8+3 (2',1',2',3) ,Danny King 8 (2,3,3,0) ,Drew Kemp 5+1 (3,2',XD,0,0) ,Zach Cook 4 (0,1,3,R) ,Nathan Ablitt  1 (1,0,RS,0) EDINBURGH 41 ,Sam Masters 15 (3,3,1,3,2,3) ,Jason Edwards 10+1 (1,2,1,2,1,1',2) ,Josh Pickering 7+1 (3,2,0,1',1) ,Michele Castagna 5+2 (1,0,1',2,1') ,Kye Thomson 4+1 (F,1,1',2) ,Jacob Hook 0 (XD,0,0,TS,RS)
 

Meeting report and heat details and available here