PIRATES FACE TWO CONTRASTING MEETINGS

The Poole Pirates face two contrasting meetings in the space of twenty four hours as they seek to remain in all three of the SGB Championship competitions. 

Firstly, they head to Plymouth on Tuesday night, carrying with them a large thirty point advantage in the play-off quarter finals and will be clear favourites to progress into the semi-finals and a clash with the Glasgow Tigers, then on Wednesday they will be back on home soil facing the top team in the SGB Championship table, the Leicester Lions, with the Knockout Cup the focus.

The Pirates will need to claw back two points against the Lions, a position that Poole promoter Dan Ford admits is better than it was looking at one stage during the first leg on Saturday night. "To be honest I went there believing that we could actually come how with a lead and the way we began the evening up there that very much looked on the cards, but then they (Leicester) started to fight back strongly and midway through the meeting there was a feeling that they were going to run away with it. But, as I have been saying all along, our lads are nothing if not resilient and when the chips were down we fought back proudly and might well have had the two point lead ourselves, had it not been for a tremendous ride by Kyle Howarth in heat thirteen, to share the points in the re-run. A two-point deficit is of course far from insurmountable and although Leicester have already won at our place this season and we have yet to beat them, I feel that our lads will raise their game for this one. Whichever way you look at it, we are in for a thriller of a meeting and I hope that our superb fans will turn out in good numbers and get behind us, just to add that extra piece of inspiration for us to 'get over the line'. 

Poole will be unchanged for both meetings this week which means that skipper Danny King, who finished fourth in the British Final on Sunday, continuing to lead from the number one position.

Tuesday's Teams:
Plymouth: 1 Scott Nicholls (Guest), 2 Ben Morley, 3 Rider Replacement , 4 Aaron Summers (Guest) , 5 Hans Andersen (Capt), 6 Lee Complin, 7 Connor Coles - Team Manager Garry May 
Poole: 1 Danny King (Capt), 2 Ben Cook, 3 Steve Worrall, 4 Drew Kemp, 5 Richard Lawson, 6 Zach Cook, 7 Nathan Ablitt - Team manager Neil Middleditch

Wednesday's Teams
Poole: 1 Danny King (Capt), 2 Ben Cook, 3 Steve Worrall, 4 Drew Kemp, 5 Richard Lawson, 6 Zach Cook, 7 Nathan Ablitt - Team manager Garry May
Leicester: 1 Nick Morris, 2 Connor Mountain, 3 Richie Worrall, 4 Dan Thompson, 5 Kyle Howarth (Capt), 6 Joe Thompson, 7 Max Clegg - Team manager Stewart Dickson