PIRATES DEFEAT BRUISED BANDITS

POOLE moved second in the Cab Direct Championship with a 52-38 win over Berwick as the visitors suffered two more injury blows.

The Bandits were holding their own at Wimborne Road despite the luckless Lewis Kerr crashing out of the meeting in Heat 1, and were still leading by four points ahead of Heat 8.

Reserve Bastian Borke also came to grief heavily in that race, and with Kerr and Borke both withdrawn, the Pirates went clear in the second half of the meeting.

Tom Brennan led the scoring with 13+1 and Ben Cook added 11+1, with Rory Schlein racking up 13 for the Bandits and Drew Kemp adding 11.

Borke suffered a bruised lung along with leg muscle and ligament damage, but no broken bones, whilst Kerr also suffered muscle and soft tissue damage.

Poole promoter Dan Ford said: “It was a testing and trying night all round with a number of stoppages and our thoughts are very much for the welfare of Bastian and Lewis as their respective evenings came to abrupt ends.

“Pure racing incidents were the cause of their crashes with neither side willing to give an inch on what was a good racing track that received positive comments amongst all the riders. Bastian’s fall was particularly nasty and we wish him a very speedy recovery.

“Of course, losing two riders was always going to be something of a stretch for them but we must not take anything away from our boys who really dug deep.”

OFFICIAL REFEREE SCORECARD
Available here

Photo credit: TONY HARTMAN