PIRATES AIM TO TOP GROUP IN WINNER TAKES ALL FIXTURE AGAINST CHEETAHS

It is a case of winner takes all on Wednesday night at Wimborne Road when the Poole 'Wessex Marine' Pirates host arch rivals Oxford in the BSN Series.

Last Wednesday the visitors moved back to the top of the Southern group with a hard fought home victory over Plymouth, but a win by any margin for the Pirates will secure them the automatic semi-final berth in the competition that they can very much claim their own, having been the only winners since its inauguration.

Promoter Dan Ford sees the contest as a potential nail-biter, claiming "You might need to bring along someone to cling on to as this meeting has all the ingredients of matching the two previous Wimborne Road battles we have endured against Oxford. There is no doubt that they are a strong team and there is hardly a heat that you can look at that will not be tough, so we have a meeting with every point to race for and it is going to be one of those where the encouragement from the supporters could be the telling factor. We had incredible drama up at Oxford earlier in the season with Zach [Cook] and Richard [Lawson] taking the match into a superheat, before going on to get the verdict in that and it certainly looks as if we will be in for another close encounter of the Oxford kind!"

Whilst the Pirates name an unchanged side, Oxford will be without Cameron Heeps who suffered a shoulder injury in their victory over Plymouth, and the Cheetahs management have opted to use the rider replacement to cover his position. As Heeps is currently second in their averages, for May, it means all riders are eligible for selection for an extra outing.

Defeat for either team would not necessarily be cause for elimination from the competition as there is a place for the runners-up across the three groups, but there is no doubt that neither side on Wednesday will want to be in the position of sitting and waiting for the other groups to complete their fixtures before learning their fate.
Teams
Poole (TM Neil Middleditch) Richard Lawson Tobias Thomsen Anders Rowe Zach Cook Lewi Kerr Paul Starke Matt Marson
Oxford (TM Peter Schroeck) Sam Masters (Capt) R/R for Cameron Heeps Jonas Knudsen Dan Gilkes Jordan Jenkins Mitch McDiarmid Luke Killeen.

Current Southern Group Standings

Scottish Group Standings

Remaining fixture: 9th May Glasgow (46) v Edinburgh (44)

(*) confirmed Group winners

Northern Group Standings

Remaining fixtures:

9th May Scunthorpe (43) v Workington (47)
10th May Workington (39) v Redcar (51)