PREVIEWING: CUP SEMI FINAL ACTION - POOLE v SCUNTHORPE

Top of the table hoggers Poole and Scunthorpe go head to head with each other on Wednesday (24th July, 19:30hrs) but there won't be a league point in sight, as last season's KO Cup finalists meet again, although only at the semi-final stage.

The Pirates host the first leg seeking to put the memories of October 21st 2023 behind them, when the Scorpions last appeared at Wimborne Road and went away with a draw and the silverware that has been a regular fixture in the Pirates trophy cabinet.

Poole promoter Dan Ford admitted, "I don't think we will ever be able to erase the memories of that night, to be honest. They just stubbornly refused us to get any consistency in our scores to be able to pull back the first leg deficit, which to our credit we had been able to hold to just four points.Meeting Scunthorpe again and with a final waiting around the corner I believe that we have all the motivation we need. Of course, it is not going to be easy. They are a solid side but we simply have to hit them as hard as possible from heat 1. This will be our first home meeting of the school holiday season and with our Kids for Free offer then hopefully we will have plenty of young voices cheering us on, we will need all the encouragement we can muster."

Captain Ben Cook is fully aware that the team will need to be on their 'A'-game from the outset, claiming "If I am honest I don't think we have all fired one-to-seven at home yet and yet we are still putting in some good scores, so yes, hopefully we will all turn up and give it our A-game and get the win."
Scunthorpe have three strong heat leaders, all evenly matched on their averages in Kyle Howarth, Jake Allen and Michael Palm-Toft and they have been receiving excellent back-up from Simon Lambert (scorer of twelve points in last season's cup final) and Connor Mountain, whilst reserve Nathan Ablitt has certainly moved his career on since his 2022 campaign as a Pirate.

Poole have named their regular one-to-seven which means a welcome return to Vinnie Foord after he was forced to withdraw from the Pirates' winning appearance at Redcar last weekend.

Whilst the cup is all the focus on Wednesday the PIrates do have two big meetings on the horizon with league trips to Glasgow and Workington coming up on Friday and Saturday, respectively.

Teams
Poole (TM Neil Middleditch) 1 Richard Lawson 2 Tobias Thomsen 3 Ben Cook (Capt) 4 Zach Cook 5 Tom Brennan 6 Sam Hagon 7 Vinnie Foord
Scunthorpe (TM Rob Godfrey) 1 Michael Palm-Toft 2 Simon Lambert (Capt) 3 Jake Allen 4 Connor Mountain 5 Kyle Howarth 6 Nathan Ablitt 7 Luke Harrison