Scunthorpe Scorpions v Poole Pirates

Report

POOLE ended Scunthorpe’s reign as Cab Direct KO Cup holders and also sounded a warning for other competitions with a 50-40 win at the Eddie Wright Raceway on Friday.

The Pirates, who had lost out to the Scorpions in last season’s Cup Final, were already strong favourites to progress after a big home win in the first leg, but the return fixture saw them become the first visiting team this season to take a victory in Lincolnshire.

Skipper Ben Cook led the scoring with 11+1 with brother Zach adding 11 and Tom Brennan on 10 in a powerful display by the Dorset side, who are still chasing a clean sweep of team trophies this season and will meet Oxford in the Cup Final.

Said Ben Cook: “It was good for the boys as we showed what we can do here, and we can get a win here. We just need to do it when it really matters in the next few weeks, but everything is going good at the minute.

“We visualised this as a normal meeting. We didn’t want to think about only going out there and getting the 30 points that we needed to get through, we wanted to win the meeting and it is good that we were able to do that.

“Not everything went to our plans, but to get the result shows we can do it, and like I said we need to do it when it really matters.”

CAB DIRECT CHAMPIONSHIP KO CUP, SEMI-FINAL, 2nd leg
SCUNTHORPE 40: Jake Allen 9+2, Kyle Howarth 9+1, Simon Lambert 8+1, Connor Mountain 6, Michael Palm Toft 5, Luke Harrison 2, Nathan Ablitt 1+1
POOLE 50: Ben Cook 11+1, Zach Cook 11, Tom Brennan 10, Richard Lawson 9+1, Tobias Thomsen 5+1, Paul Starke 4+2
Poole win 110-69 on aggregate

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Photo credit: IAN RISPIN