REACTION: COOK BOYS HAVE WIMBORNE ROAD BOILING OVER!

The Cook brothers had Wimborne Road boiling over in heat fourteen of the Pirates SGB Championship Jubilee League Southern Group fixture against Oxford as their telepathy pulled off a vital 5-1 in the penultimate heat which crucially gave the Pirates the lead for the first time on the night.

With Oxford looking to set to produce a shock result, having been much sharper from the tapes all evening, Poole fans were beginning to resign themselves to defer any celebrations of reaching the final of the competition, as they trailed by four points with four heats remaining, the margin subsequently having been halved ahead of the final two races.

Team manager Neil Middleditch commented "we were facing a very tough run-in over those last four, the more I looked at the programme the more I knew we had to produce something very special indeed. I went up to the Cook boys and just told them that tonight was the night they could become true heroes and boy, didn't they respond superbly!"
"Their efforts made it easier for Danny [King] and Richard [Lawson] to finish the job off, as they only needed a shared heat in the last race, but they then finished the night in style. We made things very difficult for ourselves tonight, we just weren't gating. You can hardly describe Scott Nicholls as being a good gater, he's a great racer, but never been a gater and he made our boys look very ordinary tonight."

Zach Cook who had the hard work to do in heat fourteen to hold Aaron Summers at bay after brother Ben found the ideal line to whistle by  and take up the initiative, admitted "going into that one I don't think I have faced as much pressure, even in the play-offs last year. We pretty much knew we just we had to get something done. We needed a 5-1 and when we came out of the first corner in front I just had to concentrate and have eyes in the back of my head really."

Victorious Ben added "we had a bit of a game plan going into the corner and it worked but we don't want to be doing that every heat fourteen."

The 48-42 victory means that the Pirates remain unbeaten in the competition with just one more group match to ride, next Wednesday when the Plymouth Gladiators provide the opposition, but can't be caught so join Glasgow - as the Scottish group winners - in the final, with a third side to come from the Northern Group which features Leicester, Redcar and Scunthorpe.

POOLE 48 ,Richard Lawson 16+1 (3,3,3,2,3,2') ,Danny King 11+1 (1',2,2,3,3) ,Zach Cook 9+3 (2,2',2,1',2') ,Ben Cook 6+1 (2,0,1',3) ,Steve Worrall 6+1 (1,2',2,1) ,Nathan Ablitt 0 (0,F,RS,0) ,Drew Kemp 0 (0,TS,0,0)
OXFORD 42 ,Scott Nicholls 10+1 (2',3,3,2,0) ,Aaron Summers 9 (3,1,3,1,1) ,Paul Starke 8+1 (3,1,3,0,1') ,Dillon Ruml 8 (3,0,RS,1,1,1,2,0) ,Troy Batchelor 4+1 (1',0,3,0) ,Cameron Heeps 3 (1,2,RS,0,0,RS) 

Heat Details and Match Report