REACTION: MIDDLO PRAISES ONE TO SEVEN DEMOLITION OF GLADIATORS

Poole secured their place in the BSN Series knockout stages by maintaining their perfect start to the season, as they thrashed the Plymouth 'Prow Park' Gladiators 59-30 at Wimborne Road.

Racking up 39 out of a possible 40 score from the first eight heats the rampant Pirates had the luxury of being able to, in the words of Poole skipper Steve Worrall, "take our foot of the gas a bit."

Overseeing the incredible sight of seeing the Pirates score five successive 5-1 heat advantages to start with, and then adding a 5-0 in heat six after Richie Worrall had packed up prior to New Zealander Jake Turner crashing forcing a Poole match-race between Anders Rowe and Steve Worrall, team manager Neil Middleditch admits he could hardly believe what he was seeing.
"I was really surprised to be honest because Plymouth, you know, with Kyle (Howarth), Richie (Worrall), Starkie (Paul Starke) and Ben (Barker) they are all good riders, but we really hit the ground running and they just had no answers to us. But again a great solid team performance from all the boys tonight. From one to seven everybody played their part and with this result a lot of clubs will look at this and realise they can't take us too lightly, because we are a very good side from one to seven and that is the key.
"But we made it look easy tonight but we are going to have some tough matches to come, don't worry about that. It is not going to be like this every week . I have to say though, watching that I was left wondering at one stage whether we could go through the card with 5-1s after that tremendous start, as it was beginning to look that way. I just can't praise this team enough."

Despite the first half dominance, restricting the Gladiators to just one heat where they managed more than a single point from the first eight races, not a single Pirate was able to go through the card unbeaten. The nearest achievers were Richard Lawson, who won each of his programme rides before losing out to Richie Worrall in the nominated riders heat, whilst Adam Roynon from reserve dropped his sole point when beaten by Paul Starke in heat twelve, a race in which Ben Cook took a fall in a similar place to skipper Worrall two heats earlier.

Scorers: Poole 59 - Richard Lawson 14 (3,3,3,3,2) ,Zach Cook 9+3 (2',3,1',2,1') ,Adam Roynon 9+2 (3,2',2',2) ,Anders Rowe 8+2 (2',2',3,1) ,Steve Worrall 8+1 (3,3,F,2') ,Ben Cook 7+1 (3,2',2,F) ,Kyle Newman 4+1 (2',1,1,R)
Plymouth 30 - Ben Barker 8+1 (1,2,0,2',3) ,Richie Worrall 8 (1,XD,3,1,3) ,Paul Starke 6 (0,0,3,3,0) ,Kyle Howarth 3 (0,1,2,0) ,Ben Trigger 2 (1,0,0,1) ,Dan Gilkes 2 (1,0,1,0) ,Jake Turner 1 (0,FD,TS,1)
 

Match Report and Heat details

Photo: Anthony Burchall