BOWES BLOW AS PIRATES PROGRESS

HOLDERS Poole are through to the MAXiCab KO Cup semi-finals after a commanding 55-34 win over Oxford for a 31-point aggregate victory.

But the result did come at a cost for the Pirates, who saw Fraser Bowes crash out of his second ride and he was taken to hospital complaining of lower back pain.

Richard Lawson (13+1), Zach Cook (12), Will Cairns (11) and Lewis Kerr (10) all scored double figures for the Pirates, with guest Nick Morris reaching 10 for the visitors.

Pirates promoter Dan Ford apologised to supporters for the delay to the meeting after the Bowes crash, with remedial work completed on the track.

He said: “It has been a really challenging evening and I just want to say thank you so much to everyone. I’m really, really sorry for tonight. I’m so disappointed in what we put out there in terms of the track preparation.

“No excuses – we will put our hands up, we absolutely got it wrong. Full credit to the riders for doing what they could in racing in those conditions.

“Of course, we are sending our messages of support to Fraser, but we are just really sorry and would ask you all to stick with us. We are going to get it sorted.”

Oxford manager Peter Schroeck said: “It’s always a tough place to come down to and then we had all the stops and goes during the meeting. The track was very grippy early on, and even the Poole boys weren’t happy about it. But that’s not an excuse – it was the same for both teams.

“At one stage, it didn’t look too bad for us and we were staying with them. If we could have pinched a win on the night that would have been nice. But Poole were firing on too many cylinders and it ran away from us.”

Poole will now face Berwick in the semi-finals with Plymouth taking on Redcar in the other last-four clash.

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