Preview: Poole Pirates v Redcar Bears - BSN Semi Final

There will be several familiar faces in the pits on Wednesday night (17th May) when the Poole 'Wessex Marine' Pirates host the first leg of the BSN Semi-final against the Redcar Bears.
 

The Teesside club include the man that captained the Pirates to a clean sweep of trophies in the past two seasons, former British Champion Danny King, whilst Danyon Hume played a role in bringing SGB Championship success to Wimborne Road in 2021, the Pirates first season back at tier two level.

Another ex-British Champion, Charles Wright, skippers the strength-in-depth Bears, a side that are hoping to have two-time World Longtrack champion Erik Riss back in the fold after a lengthy illness which has side-lined him since early April, forming a team that Poole promoter Dan Ford greatly respects.

"I like their team. It's a good team. Obviously they have an incredibly strong top three which has been the kind of approach we have gone for in the past couple of seasons, but we have gone slightly different this year but yeah, I'm looking forward to this meeting. I think it is going to be our biggest test of the season so far. Seeing Kingy back around Wimborne Road will be great. He was such an important part of the team in the past couple of seasons and we were truly gutted to lose Danny this year, purely because of the numbers. It was certainly the hardest decision I have had to make since my involvement here at the club. We know what he can do here, so for sure he is going to be the danger man if you like, but we have got riders who can go out there and take it to him."

One of the regular crew of the 2023 Pirates however, Anders Rowe, will be missing the fixture as he forms part of the Team GB that will be heading to Stralsund for the European U23 Team Championship qualifier and so rider replacement will operate for him. The Poole management are taking no chances however and have booked Sam Hagon to cover as the number eight, a move that Ford explains "this is such an important fixture for us as we really need to build up a good score to take to Redcar on Saturday and we want to cover all bases. Young Sam really impressed here last week and by having him as our named number eight means that we can offer him a ride which gives us an extra option. I am not sure the last time Poole used a number eight to be honest. I certainly can't recall it so it must have been a few years ago."

In fact it was nearly twelve years ago when the Pirates gave a late call-up to Kyle Howarth to cover for Swede Dennis Andersson when the Dorset side contested a second leg KO cup tie against Swindon, on June 22nd 2011.

Redcar booked their place in the BSN semi-final as the best performing runners-up from the three regional groups. They achieved seven points in the Northern group, comfortably bettering Berwick's five from the Scottish section and that of either Oxford or Plymouth, who can't match that tally from their remaining fixture in the Southern Group, won by Poole.

Teams
Poole Wessex Marine Pirates - 1 Steve Worrall (Capt) 2 Rider Replacement for Anders Rowe 3 Ben Cook 4 Zach Cook 5 Richard Lawson 6 Kyle Newman 7 Adam Roynon Team manager Neil Middleditch
Redcar Agilia Bears - 1 Rideer Replacement for Erik Riss 2 Danyon Hume 3 Charles Wright (Capt) 4 Connor Bailey 5 Danny King 6 Jason Edwards 7 Jake Mulford Team manager Gavin Parr