PALOVAARA STARS BUT PIRATES WIN

POOLE picked up a 48-42 win at Edinburgh at the start of their mini-Northern tour in the Cab Direct Championship – despite another stunning show from home reserve Victor Palovaara.

Richard Lawson and Anders Rowe were the Pirates’ heroes with a 5-1 in Heat 15 as the Pirates edged a close contest which had the Monarchs cursing their misfortune.

The home side saw Kye Thomson suffer mechanical trouble when on a 5-1 in Heat 1, and Oskar Polis pulled out of Heat 7 when set for a maximum with Palovaara, the Pole subsequently being withdrawn with a wrist injury.

Palovaara kept the Monarchs in contention with a brilliant 19 from seven rides, but he had completed his outings before Lawson (13) and Rowe (11+1) clinched the visitors’ victory in Heat 15.

Pirates manager Gary Havelock said: “I’m over the moon. It was a fabulous performance especially when they have a free-flowing reserve like they have. It’s always difficult when you have a strong reserve.

“Don’t get me wrong, I think we got at least three or four slices of luck tonight which you don’t normally get all in one meeting, but I will take that every day of the week, and I know that we will have equal measures of bad luck to cancel that out over the season.”

Monarchs boss Alex Harkess said: “The way things have gone tonight sums up our season really. I think we threw away at least eight points. I think there were four races in which we were on a 5-1 and blew it ourselves.

“We gated better than we have, we fought hard, but either through some bad luck or mistakes we could not finish the job. Ultimately it was disappointing.”

*BSN Series holders Poole will again face Oxford in the semi-finals, after both teams made it through the Southern group.

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Photo credit: JACK CUPIDO