PREVIEW: OXFORD v POOLE (CAB DIRECT CHAMP)
OXFORD and Poole meet in a big top-four Cab Direct Championship clash at Cowley tonight (Wednesday).
Both sides are currently in the play-off places and the Pirates would take over at the top with an away win – whilst if the Cheetahs maintain their unbeaten home record, they will go above their opponents into second.
When they met in the BSN Series earlier in the season it was a narrow 45-44 win for Oxford, who again bring in Jacob Hook at reserve to guest for the injured Henry Atkins.
Meanwhile the Pirates are without Tobias Thomsen, who suffered a foot injury in Denmark at the weekend, with Joe Thompson coming in to guest.
Oxford manager Peter Schroeck said: “What a win over Poole will achieve is that it will give the whole team confidence. Once you’ve beaten them, you feel that you can beat anyone.
“It’s an important week ahead for the Monarch Cheetahs, since we’re also at Redcar on Friday, before Workington are here next Wednesday. That takes us to the halfway stage of our Cab Direct Championship fixtures.
“If we score some good points over the three meetings, we can go a long way towards consolidating our place in the play-off places. But we’ll take it one meeting at a time and that starts against Poole on Wednesday.”
Poole promoter Dan Ford said: “That meeting (in May) left us with mixed emotions as we always knew it was going to be tough to get a result there, but then to be leading with just two heats to go and not get the victory made it something of a disappointment.
“Zach (Cook) was not 100 per cent that night and he is generally better than a paid four return and apart, arguably, from Richard (Lawson) and Tom (Brennan) I can see opportunities for improvements amongst the team, and we don’t need much to get over the line and bank a couple more league points, which would strengthen our position in the table.”
OXFORD: Sam Masters, Luke Killeen, Jordan Jenkins, Cameron Heeps, Scott Nicholls, Ashton Boughen, Jacob Hook.
POOLE: Richard Lawson, Joe Thompson, Tom Brennan, Zach Cook, Ben Cook, Sam Hagon, Vinnie Foord.
SCB Referee: Dave Watters
*LIVE STREAMING: https://watch.britishspeedway.co.uk
