PREVIEW | PIRATES HEADING FOR OXFORD IN GRAND FINAL OPENER

Number one Richard Lawson is of the belief that the Pirates can be thankful that a number of them were still involved in key meetings elsewhere ahead of their weekend trip to Oxford for the first leg of the Cab Direct Championship Grand Final.

The Pirates travel to Oxford on Saturday determined that they will put themselves in a good position for Wednesday's second leg at Wimborne Road.  The Pirates have appeared twice at the OX4 venue this season, gaining a league draw and enduring a narrow one point defeat in the group stages of the BSN Series, and so have a firm confidence base on which to go into the meeting on.  They are presently on a nine sequence undefeated run,  five of which have been away from Wimborne Road, a statistic in itself that underlines the Pirates resilience. 

Skipper Ben Cook (Belle Vue), Sam Hagon and Lawson (Leicester) were in opposition on Thursday night in the deciding leg of the Rowe Motor Oil Premiership final with Cook's Aces team clinching the top flight title, whilst Tom Brennan has a big date on Friday in Pardubice when he races in the GP Challenge, which would be a pathway into next year's GP series if he were to finish in the top four.

The BSN Series title winners' number one Lawson stated "I think it is good that in the build up to the Grand Final we have fixtures to race as it can really keep the confidence going and we have plenty of that as a team right now."

Teams: 
Oxford (TM Peter Schroeck) 1 Sam Masters 2 Cameron Heeps 3 Ashton Boughen 4 Dan Gilkes (Guest) 5 Scott Nicholls (Capt) 6 Luke Killen 7 Jody Scott (Guest)
Poole (TM Neil Middleditch) 1 Richard Lawson 2 Sam Hagon 3 Ben Cook (Capt) 4 Zach Cook 5 Tom Brennan 6 Tobias Thomsen 7 Vinnie Foord