GRIZZLY NIGHT FOR PIRATES IN BSN SERIES FINAL

There is now a vacant space in Poole Pirates' trophy cabinet as, for the first time since it's inception, the BSN Series trophy has left Wimborne Road and is bound for Teesside.
 

The despondent Poole side, who missed out on a back-to-back treble had managed to draw the meeting which meant the Redcar Bears clung on to their two point advantage from the first leg.

Having observed the tense affair at Wimborne Road which was marred by a crash for fans' favourite Tobias Thomsen in heat 10, from which he required transporting to Poole Hospital for checks on a neck injury, team manager Neil Middleditch admitted "Trophy number thirty four will have to wait until next year. But fair play to Redcar. Listen I'm not making any excuses, Redcar were the better team tonight and they deserved to win the title, but obviously that race when we lost Toby when we had a dead cert 5-1, really unsettled us. To be fair, I had already stepped down, thinking the 5-1 was in the bag, we were that close, but then the crowd roared and unfortunately Toby had suffered a big crash. Of course, our main concern is that Toby is ok, that has to be the main thing, but Redcar have been a great team all season . Their manager, Gavin (Parr) said before the start of the meeting that we had stopped them at every corner - knocked them out of the play-offs, beat them in the Knockout cup, but they rose to the occasion tonight and I congratulate them for doing so. I feel though for Zach (Cook) as he desperately wanted to achieve the treble and follow in his brother's footsteps He is bitterly disappointed to have missed out on it, but he shouldn't be really. We have all had a fantastic season here at Poole this season. Many teams would be happy to get one trophy and we have got two so we should feel proud on that score." 

Tobias' accident came as the Dane was less than fifteen metres from firing Poole into a six point lead on the night and a four point aggregate advantage as he was following home Richard Lawson for a potential 5-1. But that heat ended as a shared heat, leaving Poole just two up on aggregate. Redcar then took the overall lead through a 5-1 from Charles Wright and a pacey Jody Scott, both of whom went either side of Anders Rowe in heat 11, before Scott rode another superb race, battling turn for turn with Lewi Kerr to convert Jason Edwards' victory into a 4-2 advantage. Lawson suffered a disqualification in heat thirteen for causing Charles Wright to crash at the pit turn and in the re-run Wright and King (who had also hit the deck as he couldn't avoid the stricken Wright) and that left Poole needing two maximum heat advantages to force another Superheat decider. A bizarre incident saw Jake Mulford shed a primary chain and a rear chain which forced him to fall. leaving the door open for the Pirates to potentially steal the heat, but Scott, who earlier in the meeting had crashed himself when leading, managed to split Cook and Paul Starke to seal the destiny of the title. Lawson and Cook closed out Poole's season with a 5-1 to square the scores on the night, the aggregate difference being the first leg score from last weekend.

POOLE 45 -Zach Cook 12+1 (3,1,3,3,2') ,Richard Lawson 9 (0,3,3,X0,3) ,Anders Rowe 6 (2,2,1,1) ,Paul Starke 5+1 (3,1',0,1) ,Tobias Thomsen 5 (3,0,2,F) ,William Cairns 4+3 (2',1',1',0) ,Lewis Kerr 4 (1,0,1,2)
REDCAR 45 -Danny King 14 (3,2,3,2,3,1) ,Charles Wright 10+1 (2,3,3,2') ,Jason Edwards 9+1 (2,2',0,2,3,0) ,Jody Scott 7+2 (1,1',F,RS,2',1,2) ,Jake Mulford 5+2 (1',0,3,1',FD) ,Ace Pijper 0 (R,0,RS,0,RS)

Full Heat details and report

Photo Credit Liam Cockwell