PREVIEW: SCUNTHORPE v POOLE

Poole 'Wessex Marine' Pirates take an eight point lead with them on Friday night, when they travel to Scunthorpe, but will have neither of their regular reserves on show.

Adam Roynon is ruled out through the shoulder injury he sustained last Friday, whilst Anders Rowe has been selected to ride in the FIM Speedway of Nations U21 (Known as SoN2) for Team GB in Latvia.

Alfie Bowtell and Sam Hagon have been booked as guests to fill the reserve berths and join the regular five Pirates who face a Scunthorpe side that  welcome back Michael Palm-Toft for the first time since June 9th, the Dane having been sidelined with an ankle injury, enduring a spell that saw him miss six meetings for the North Lincolnshire side. 

In two of those absences, Poole's Zach Cook has guested in his place, scoring 8+2 and 5+2 respectively. Prior to those meetings, Cook has also made two other appearances at the Eddie Wright Raceway, both for Birmingham as a guest, and in those he returned scores of 8+2 and 8+1. The Pirates are obviously seeking a similar level of return from the younger of their Cook siblings as they seek to go one better than their away draw achieved against the Scorpions last year.

Poole Promoter Dan Ford is not underestimating the task that lies ahead for the Pirates claiming "well we only need to look back to when they were here at Poole. It took us ten heats to get our noses in front on that occasion and we saw just what a quality rider Ryan Douglas is as he roared to that eighteen point maximum, and you don't see him not heading the field in too many races at Scunthorpe. But we will be going there with our simple game plan of getting a win, if we do that then it is another three points on the board and every point is key at the moment, but, at this stage, let's not lose sight that the really big meetings happen next month in the play-offs."

Just as the Pirates lose the services of key reserve Anders Rowe, so too do the Scorpions as 2022 Pirate Drew Kemp, snapped up to replace Max Clegg who had been drafted in initially to cover for Zaine Kennedy who, through injury, was unable to travel to the UK this season. Kemp is also on the GB Team with Plymouth and Sheffield rider Dan Gilkes completing the GB trio and Scunthorpe have booked Steve Boxall as cover.

The meeting could be a precursor of the SGB Championship Knockout Cup final, if the Scorpions can progress in their semi-final against Redcar, a tie that has still to be resolved after successive night rain-offs on the 14th and 15th July have delayed the outcome.

Teams
Scunthorpe - 1 Ryan Douglas 2 Connor Mountain 3 Simon Lambert (Capt) 4 Michael Palm Toft 5 Jake Allen 6 Nathan Ablitt 7 Steve Boxall (Guest) - Team manager Dave Peet
Poole - 1 Richard Lawson 2 Kyle Newman 3 Ben Cook 4 Zach Cook 5 Steve Worrall (Capt) 6 Alfie Bowtell (Guest) 7 Sam Hagon (Guest) - Team manager Gary Havelock

Photo: Anthony Burchall