REACTION: CAPTAIN COOK STEERS PIRATES TO VICTORY

The Poole 'Wessex Marine' Pirates are sharing the maximums around in recent fixtures, with Ben Cook now adding his name to the list of unbeaten Pirates in meetings.

Following on from Richard Lawson's 'full-house' last week, and two preceding paid maximums from signing of the season Tom Brennan, skipper Cook was in superb form as the Pirates faced an, as expected, tough battle against second-placed Scunthorpe at Wimborne Road on Wednesday night, eventually running out 52-38 winners.

As well as his first maximum since August 30th 2023, Cook also scooped his first Rider of the Night award this season, acknowledging "All the boys have been going pretty good this year and so it has been a hard job to get a nomination this year, but that's good because it means everyone is doing their job and some and so I will take that. We re-grouped mid-meeting and said we just had to go out there and show them what we can do and I'm pretty sure we did that at the end of the day. We made some starts and away we went."

Cook's partner in the nominated heat fifteen, Tom Brennan, had reason to feel somewhat aggrieved that he was forced to miss out on a maximum of his own after he was harshly disqualified in heat eleven when the victim of some squeezing up at the first turn. 

After being unbeaten in his other four rides, philosophically he shrugged the incident off, but admitted "The referees are here to do a job but it seems that no decisions have been going my way at all this season which is a bit of a funny one, but hey, I am just going to have to take it on the chin. To be honest I thought I was starting awful tonight early on but it came together in the end."

It certainly came for him in heat seven when he stole the victory on the line from Jake Allen just as the Pirates were in danger of conceding a second consecutive heat advantage, but his move off the final turn was strong enough to give him the power in the dash for the line. Poole then did concede a heat advantage in heat eight as Tobias Thomsen couldn't quite close down Nathan Ablitt, but then came that gear change that Poole promoter Dan Ford mentioned in the build-up to the meeting.

For whilst the Scorpions took advantage of Brennan's disqualification in that heat eleven incident, Poole finished strongly to generate a double figure lead to take with them on Friday night when the bonus point will be up for grabs in North Lincolnshire.

Should they achieve thirty nine points when the two sides face off again, then the Pirates will be guaranteed to finish ahead of Scunthorpe ahead of the play-offs with only Oxford in a position to overhaul them.
Poole will have Plymouth's Jacob Hook guesting for them on Friday in place of Vinnie Foord.

Wednesday's scorers:
POOLE 52 - Ben Cook 15 (3,3,3,3,3) ,Tom Brennan 11+1 (3,3,FD,3,2') ,Richard Lawson 9+2 (2',2,3,2') ,Zach Cook 7+2 (0,2',2',3) ,Tobias Thomsen 6 (2,0,2,1,1) ,Sam Hagon 3 (3,0,0,0) ,Ben Trigger 1+1 (1',0,RS,0)
SCUNTHORPE 38 - Kyle Howarth 11 (2,3,1,3,1,1) ,Nathan Ablitt 10+1 (3,1,3,RS,1',2) ,Jake Allen 6+2 (1',2,1',2) ,Connor Mountain 5+1 (2,1',2,0) ,Simon Lambert 5+1 (1,1,1,2',0) ,Luke Harrison 1+1 (R,1',RS,0,RS) ,Michael Palm-Toft 0 (0,0,TS,0)

Full Heat Details and Report