PREVIEW: CHEETAHS BACK IN TOWN - HIGH DRAMA ASSURED

High excitement, total effort and moments of controversy are all but guaranteed on Wednesday night when knockout speedway comes to Wimborne Road.

The 2024 treble winners will compete in their first semi-final of that treble defence when they welcome arch rivals Oxford back to Wimborne Road for the first leg of the BSN Series semi-final.

Poole have only lost at home once this season and that was to Oxford in the group stage of this competition, with Oxford going on to win the Southern group and Poole being the best of the three groups runners-up. So it is some irony that they face each other again in the semi-finals and the Cheetahs arrive hot on the heels of a controversial league meeting just two weeks ago, when they restricted Poole to a 48-42 score.

Poole boss Dan Ford is anticipating another keenly fought contest but ideally with a stronger outcome for the Pirates so that they will have something to defend when they visit Oxford in the second leg, on a date still to be agreed. "I have said it before but when Oxford are in town there will always be talking points. The passion levels seem to rise and Southern pride usually reaches fever pitch. I look back at that league meeting of two weeks ago and we had seven no scoring rides. If each of those had been converted into a third place then instead of just winning by six we would have won by a score of twenty! It is just such small margins that we need to address. We just haven't been too dominant at home, especially in the course of the last month or so, but now is the time to turn that around. This is knockout speedway now, all the way here at Wimborne Road and we need to get into a mindset as such. A win in itself is not enough, we ideally need to win big.

Whilst Poole will be at full strength with the two Poole reserves, Paul Starke and William Cairns reverting to six and seven respectively, after they were switched around for last Saturday's penultimate league fixture at Plymouth, the visitors again will have absentees. The impressive Francis Gusts, who scored twelve points from six rides in the Cheetahs last visit has been ruled out through illness, whilst Jonas Knudsen will be riding in the Danish League for his Holsted club.

Big hitting scorer Sam Masters will be backed up by Mitch McDiarmid and Luke Killeen, two youngsters who have each shown a strong liking for the Poole circuit, and Jordan Jenkins is now back from injury that forced him to miss the meeting at the end of July. Completing the Oxford side will be regular Cheetah Cameron Heeps and guest Jye Etheridge and Sam Hagon.

Wednesday's meeting will be supplemented by a second half Academy challenge when a team representing Poole Academy will compete against an Oxford Academy over six heats.

Teams

Poole: (TM Manager Neil Middleditch) 1 Richard Lawson 2 Tobias Thomsen 3 Lewis Kerr 4 Zach Cook (Capt) 5 Anders Rowe 6 Paul Starke 7 William Cairns

Oxford (TM Peter Schroeck) 1 Sam Masters (Capt) 2 Jye Etheridge (Guest) 3 Jordan Jenkins 4 Mitch McDiarmid 5 Cameron Heeps 6 Luke Killeen 7 Sam Hagon (Guest)

Poole Academy 1 Archie Rolph 2 Ollie Bovington 3 Oscar Berwick 4 Cody Smith

Oxford Academy 1 Seth Norman 2 Emerson Betty 3 Fraser Buckle 4 Rex Austin

Photo Credit: Tony Hartmann