PREVIEWING: NORTHERN TOUR - GLASOW AND WORKINGTON

The 'Wessex Marine' Pirates embark on a mini-northern tour over the next couple of days, with trips to Glasgow and Workington where adding points to their league tally will be the objective.

Promoter Dan Ford is optimistic, saying "We have a very healthy lead over Workington, who we race on Saturday, which is an experience we are all looking forward to. They are strong at home, just slipped up once since becoming a Championship club but if we can get dialled in quickly there then we could be in with a good chance. Equally, Glasgow has a solid proven record, especially around Ashfield but no doubt Tom (Brennan) will be able to share some tips across the team. Richard (Lawson) has had some good results there and young Sam of course was crowned British U21 title at the venue, whilst Vinnie (Foord) was also impressive in that meeting, so we have every right to be positive  and certainly not fear them. A couple of solid away performances would certainly consolidate our present league standing."

Following his heat six crash at Poole during Pirates' cup semi-final tie against Scunthorpe, Tobias Thomsen has been forced to miss both meetings, having injured his left ankle in the spectacular incident. He will be covered by guest appearances from Ashton Boughen for both matches.

Before their debut visit to Workington, the Pirates travel to Glasgow on Friday which means a return to a former home track for Brennan who spent the past three seasons as an Ashfield favourite and in Poole's past five visits (covering all competition) the two-times SON world champion Brennan was paid for forty one points as a home rider.

The Tigers remain unbeaten in the league at home since a Scottish derby shock on May 27th  2021, when Edinburgh ran out winners by just two points, so the Pirates, who have come closest to riding away with league points since, would like nothing better than to end the 26 match spell on the eve of its third anniversary.  

Team manager for the weekend, Gary Havelock, is especially looking forward to the Workington meeting " I have been there before for their individual meeting last year, it's a wicked little set-up and is a track that I think our lads should take to quite well. It's not big but it's wide and it's fast and rides like a big track, a bit like Redcar, so I think it should be good."

Teams
Glasgow (Team Manager Cami Brown) 1 Chris Harris (Capt) 2 Jack Smith 3 Matic Ivacic 4 Anders Rowe (Guest) 5 Leon Flint 6 James Pearson 7 Jason Garrad
Workington (Team Manager James Denham) 1 Craig Cook (Capt) 2 Claus Vissing 3 Antti Vuolas 4 Jason Edwards (Guest) 5 Troy Batchelor 6 Celina Liebmann 7 Sam McGurk

Poole* (Team Manager Gary Havelock) 1 Richard Lawson 2 Ashton Boughen (Guest) 3 Ben Cook (Capt) 4 Zach Cook 5 Tom Brennan 6 Sam Hagon 7 Vinnie Foord
*both meetings