REACTION: PIRATES CONQUER AT COLISEUM TO BOOK PLACE IN CUP SEMI FINALS

12/05/23

They came, they rode and they conquered with an emphatic 51-39 victory over Plymouth at the Coliseum, and in doing so the Poole Wessex Marine Pirates booked their place in the SGB Cab Direct Championship Knockout Cup semi finals where they will face Oxford.

A delighted Dan Ford gave the following reaction to his side's 105-75 aggregate victory "although we went into this meeting with a good lead we knew we had work to do and our boys were really fired up for it especially following some of the things they had heard from Plymouth in the build up to the meeting. And I'm pleased to say they went out there and put in a dominating performance from one to seven. I was especially pleased for Stevie (Worrall) as he hasn’t been quite at his best for us this year and has been quite unwell in the past week, but you wouldn’t have known that by the way he rode to be our top scorer tonight. This was a good win for us and gives us something to take into next week's two very tough meetings against Redcar in the BSN semi-finals.

Holding an eighteen point lead from their quarter final first leg the Pirates offered the Gladiators very little in the way of opportunities to try and claw back the deficit, once the meeting eventually got underway following a delayed start whilst an impromptu inspection of the third turn was carried out by the referee, the clerk of the course and both captains.

Whilst the first couple of races produced some non-too pretty racing, conditions soon settled down and Ben Cook produced a fast winning time of 50.04 seconds in heat three before Ben Barker established a new track record of 49.19.

A superbly executed 5-1 from Steve Worrall and Anders Rowe in heat eleven secured cup progress but the Pirates still had their focus on putting the Gladiators to the sword on the night, finishing strongly by restricting the home side to just eight points from the final four heats.

The Pirates are expecting to be able to confirm their KO Cup semi-final dates over the course of the weekend.

Plymouth 39 - Ben Barker 11 (2,3,2,2,2) ,Kyle Howarth 8 (3,3,0,2,0) ,Richie Worrall 7+1 (3,2,1,1') ,Dan Gilkes 7 (0,1,3,3) ,Paul Starke 3+1 (1',1,0,1) ,Ben Trigger 3 (1,1,0,1,0,0,0) ,Jake Turner 0 (F,NS,NS,NS)
Poole 51- Steve Worrall 12+1 (1',2,3,3,3) ,Ben Cook 10 (3,1,2,3,1) ,Zach Cook 7+1 (0,3,1',3) ,Richard Lawson 7 (2,2,3,0) ,Anders Rowe 6+1 (2,0,2,2') ,Kyle Newman 5+2 (2',0,1,2') ,Adam Roynon 4 (3,R,F,1)