REACTION - SPEEDWAY THE WINNER IN DRAMATIC POOLE VICTORY - CLAIMS MIDDLO

Poole began their defence of the BSN title with an overtime victory at Sandy Lane, Oxford on Wednesday, after the meeting scores were level at 45 a-piece at the completion of fifteen heats.

The rivalry against the club they beat in two different finals and eliminated in this same competition last year, continued with Poole manager Neil Middleditch declaring the meeting a "victory for the sport".
"Speedway is the real winner here tonight,, we have renewed our rivalry against Oxford and the scores have swung back an forth" he said as he selected club captain Zach Cook and Richard Lawson for the nominated heat fifteen, with Poole trailing by four points.
Cook made a super gate and led from the front whilst Lawson became embroiled in a cat-and-mouse encounter against the hitherto unbeaten Sam Masters. Sensationally, Lawson clung on to second place to level the scores sending the meeting into a deciding superheat under the scoring of 4-3-2-0.
It was a no-brainer for Middleditch to send out the same pairing for the extra ride, whilst his oppo, Peter Schroeck decided to switch Jordan Jenkins for Cameron Heeps.
Poole's plan was clear - to make certain they held at least second and third, which allowed Masters a relatively easy victory as they concentrated on blocking out Heeps effectively and skipper Cook was a happy man with the outcome "It was a close meeting throughout and me and Rich did what we had to do in the last couple of rides so it is all good. It was nice to come here and get the win. Obviously it is early days and we now need to make Friday count too. As for that superheat we just knew that we needed a minimum of second and third and so yeah, when he [Sam Masters] got out in front then yeah, it was just a matter of doing what we needed to do."
Lawson was equally as content with the outcome, declaring "I started off terrible tonight, I don't know what is going on with the engine I was using early on and at King's Lynn too, so we are going to whip that out and send it back. Once I swapped bikes it was a different ball-game for me and I felt more like myself. We had some pressure there at the end but as I have said before you carry pressure being with Poole as the fans expect a lot but I revel in that. We want to win and it is those kind of heats where you need the set-up and we got there. Zach and I were saying in Vegas the team is going to look to him and me to do it and I guess we achieved that today. Look, we musn't get too carried away, this is just one meeting. But you know we were here to do a job today and we've done that so we need to keep our feet on the ground and bring on Friday."

Scorers
OXFORD 45 - Sam Masters 13 (3,3,3,3,1) ,Luke Killeen 9+1 (2,2',0,3,2) ,Jordan Jenkins 8+1 (1,3,2,2',0) ,Cameron Heeps 6 (3,FD,2,1) ,Jonas Knudsen 5 (0,1,3,1) ,Dan Gilkes 2+2 (0,FD,1',1') ,Mitch McDiarmid 2+1 (1',1,0,RS)
POOLE 45 ,Zach Cook 13+1 (3,2',2,3,3) ,Richard Lawson 10+2 (1',2,3,2,2') ,Anders Rowe 6+1 (2',3,0,1) ,Tobias Thomsen 5+2 (2,1',1',1) ,Paul Starke 5 (3,0,2,0,RS,0) ,Lewis Kerr 5 (R,2,3,0) ,Matt Marson 1 (0,1,RS,0,RS)
Poole won Superheat 5-4

Full heat details and meeting report

Photo credit: Steve Edmunds