Previewing: Pirates Heading North in Cup and League Contests

Following the frustrations of losing out on another opportunity to ride at Wimborne Road with the postponement of the scheduled visit of Plymouth on May 1st, the 'Wessex Marine' Pirates now face three away meetings, in three different competitions in the space of six days

They head to Scotland on Friday night in the KO Cup against Edinburgh, against whom the Pirates hold a vulnerable single figure advantage, after their nine point first leg victory.Poole promoter Dan Ford said "we stated at the time that we were looking for a decent lead to take with us into the second leg but Edinburgh did well to keep us in check and that means the tables are turned on Friday and we just have to stop them eating into that lead. I certainly believe it is do-able but there is no doubt we have to be on our A-game, and the same is true over the course of our forthcoming three matches."

"Berwick on Saturday will be very tough, we might have something of a 'secret weapon' in that Richard (Lawson) has always gone well there and only last week he scored an impressive maximum when he covered for the injured Lewi Kerr, but one man can't win a meeting on their own, then next Wednesday we travel to Oxford and that is never an easy place to go to."
"The lack of meetings as a unit has not helped us and we would have preferred to have gone into this schedule with more meetings behind us, but the weather has just been foul and we can now only hope that we are through the worst of conditions and look forward to a flurry of meetings."

Both teams are set to field the same one-to-sevens on Friday as they did in the first leg with Josh Pickering, Justin Sedgmen and captain 'Paco' Castagna all well accomplished Armadale performers along with Kye Thomson. Poole will be looking to a similar return from Tom Brennan, who on his last visit to Scotland's capital track scored paid fourteen from five rides in a Scottish derby affair for Glasgow, whilst Zach Cook also hit double figures on his last visit to Armadale, bagging  eleven points, restricted only by a fourth ride retirement, in Poole's play-off visit last term, the same meeting in which Lawson scored paid thirteen. 

On Saturday Poole will line up again with their season starting seven when they face Berwick in what will be the Pirates' opening salvo in the league competition. Besides Lawson's liking for Shielfield, Brennan, too, has been quite productive at the circuit  and Ben Cook has a one-in-three race winning ratio, but the Pirates will need more as they face former Pirates Rory Schlein, Drew Kemp and Danyon Hume with the Bandits drafting in Edinburgh's Josh Pickering as cover for Kerr. The meeting will feature the riders that finished first and third in Tuesday night's British U21 semi-final, a meeting won through a perfect five ride maximum from Pirate Sam Hagon whilst Bandits' Freddie Hodder scored eleven points to secure his rostrum spot. 

It will prove to have been a good Northern tour if the Pirates were to come through the weekend still in the KO cup and with their league account open, before they switch attentions back to the BSN for Wednesday's drive up the A34.

Teams
Edinburgh (Team Manager: Alex Harkess) 1. Josh Pickering 2 Lasse Fredriksen 3 Kye Thomso 4 Michele 'Paco' Castagna (capt) 5 Justin Sedgmen 6 Max James 7 Connor Coles
Poole (Team Manager: Dan Ford) 1 Richard Lawson 2 Tobias Thomsen 3 Tom Brennan 4 Zach Cook 5 Ben Cook (capt) 6 Sam Hagon 7 Max Perry

Berwick (Team Manager: Stewart Dickson) 1 Josh Pickering (Guest) 2 Danyon Hume 3 Jye Etheridge 4 Drew Kemp 5 Rory Schlein 6 Freddie Hodder 7 Bastian Borke
Poole (Team Manager: Dan Ford) 1 Richard Lawson 2 Tobias Thomsen 3 Tom Brennan 4 Zach Cook 5 Ben Cook (capt) 6 Sam Hagon 7 Max Perry