REACTION: PIRATES PICK UP A POINT IN ONE POINT DEFEAT

The last time the Poole Pirates suffered two successive defeats came last season when they lost to Scunthorpe in the league and then Leicester in the knockout cup and so it was a quirk of the fixtures that had the Pirates heading for North Lincolnshire just nine days after Leicester inflicted a home defeat on the Pirates, and whilst their performance was a vast improvement on that of last season at the Eddie Wright Raceway they couldn't avoid that second successive defeat, going down 44-45 in a last heat decider.

That result however did secure a league point which will help them in their push to try secure one of the top two places in the SGB Championship table ahead of the title-determining play-offs, but it could so easily have been an away win they were celebrating, despite at one stage trailing by double figures against the Scunthorpe Scorpions.
But Poole promoter Dan Ford was left pondering what the meeting could have thrown up.
"Speedway meetings can be won  by small margins and we came so very close to pulling something out of the bag after a dreadful start. We were left wondering what it might have been had poor Ben [Cook] not suffered that shed chain in heat fourteen. Had he been under power then he would have been in the re-run and things would have looked a bit different going into that final heat. But the team battled hard and all the riders had their moments.. It didn’t fall our way but it was a great meeting and it will be interesting to see if that result has any influence on our final league position once all meetings are raced."
Ford was spot on about the entertainment value of the  meeting, as it  produced plenty of excitement, drama and passing went down to the wire, Poole having recovered from that early deficit to lead by two points when Steve Worrall and Drew Kemp combined for a 5-1 over Zaine Kennedy and Jordan Palin. 
But having scored seven points from his first three rides, Richard Lawson couldn't add to his tally in heat thirteen as Tero Aarnio shot out the traps whilst the respective number ones, Ryan Douglas for the home side and Danny King for the Pirates played cat and mouse in the quest for second place, King eventually prevailing. But the 4-2 advantage for the Scorpions levelled the scores. 

Drama ensued in heat fourteen when Ben Cook shed a chain at the start and had to pull onto the infield, just as Nathan Ablitt was hitting the front down the back straight. But Connor Coles reared and went down causing the race to be stopped. Coles was disqualified from the re-start as the cause of the stoppage whilst Cook was also ineligible as he was not under power at the time, so the penultimate heat boiled down to a match-race between the vastly experienced Jake Allen and Ablitt and that gave Scunthorpe a one-point advantage going into the final heat. 
Bravely it seemed, manager Gary Havelock awarded Danny King an opportunity to shine, partnering him with Steve Worrall, with Douglas and Allen the task-force for Scunthorpe. Although the Pirates quickly dispensed with Allen, Douglas was proving to be far more resilient and although King attacked on the wide lines and even checked out an inside move he just didn't have enough in him to get by the Aussie and so Scunthorpe scraped the win by a single point.

SCUNTHORPE 45 ,Ryan Douglas 13 (3,3,3,1,3) ,Jake Allen 11 (2,3,3,3,0) ,Tero Aarnio 8 (2,1,2,3) ,Jordan Palin 4+1 (3,1',0,0) ,Zaine Kennedy 4+1 (0,2',1,1) ,Simon Lambert 3+1 (2',0,1,0) ,Connor Coles 2+1 (2',0,0,XD) 
POOLE 44 ,Steve Worrall 12+1 (3,3,2,3,1') ,Drew Kemp 7+2 (1,1',3,0,2') ,Richard Lawson 7 (3,2,2,0) ,Zach Cook 6+1 (0,1,2',3) ,Danny King 6 (1,0,1,2,2) ,Ben Cook 4+2 (1,2',1',X0) ,Nathan Ablitt 2 (R,0,RS,2)

Full Match Report and  heat details here