Plymouth Gladiators v Poole Pirates

Report

POOLE booked their place in the BSN Series semi-finals with a 47-43 win at Plymouth to join Workington, Scunthorpe and Edinburgh in the last four.

The holders only needed to score 33 points at the Coliseum for the aggregate point they required to top the Southern group, but they raced to victory on the night with Richard Lawson top-scoring on 14 points.

Lawson was backed up by a solid Pirates team effort as five other visiting riders won races, whilst Dan Thompson collected 13 from six rides for the Gladiators and Ben Barker scored 12+1.

Poole boss Neil Middleditch said: “We came here wanting to win. Yes, we knew we would be through if we hit 33, but you have to go out with the mindset of wanting to win and you can’t take things easy on this track.

“Small tracks are very hard to ride, you have to ride them harder than the big tracks, but we applied ourselves well. We wanted to win and we got it.

“A bit eventful with one thing or another but there are always fireworks between Plymouth and Poole, which is good for the interest of the crowd, but we got the job done and that was the main thing.”

BSN SERIES
PLYMOUTH 43: Dan Thompson 13, Ben Barker 11, Joe Thompson 8+1, Alfie Bowtell 7+1, Jacob Hook 4+2, Jason Garrad 0, Nico Covatti r/r.
POOLE 47: Richard Lawson 14, Tobias Thomsen 8+2, Ben Cook 8, Zach Cook 7, Tom Brennan 6, Sam Hagon 4+1, Max Perry 0.
Poole win the aggregate point.

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Photo credit: DAN WESTLAKE