REACTION: PIRATES KEEP THEIR EVER-PRESENCE IN BSN KNOCKOUT STAGES

It was mission accomplished for the Poole ‘Wessex Marine’ Pirates as they secured their ‘ever-present’ tag in the knockout stages of the BSN Series.

A 52–37 home win over the Oxford Cheetahs confirmed the Pirates as Southern Group winners, and they now wait until this weekend to see who their potential semi-final opponents will be, as the other two groups are scheduled to be completed by Sunday night.

Richard Lawson went through the card unbeaten and admitted: “It was nice for the team to bounce back after our last performance up at Oxford when, like I said before, we didn’t really put up a show. But we did what we had to do tonight and we are through to the next stage, and that was the goal. The bonus point was just that tonight — we knew we had to win, and that aggregate was simply a bonus.”

Lawson was supported by Lewis Kerr’s paid eleven points and skipper Zach Cook’s paid nine, a tally matched by teen sensation Cooper Rushen, who was unbeaten in three of his four rides.

Temporary stand-in Kyle Newman, whose 28-day spell is due to expire at the end of the week, showed true tenacity in banking paid seven, including two hard-fought unbeaten rides from his last two outings.

The Pirates never trailed in this meeting, edging ahead through a strange 3–2 score in the opening heat after Sam Masters suffered mechanical issues and Newman came to grief when challenging Luke Killeen for second place.

Restricting the Cheetahs to just three race winners, the Pirates were the stronger of the two sides, and achieving their goal of securing victory was helped along when Kerr defied the tactical substitute outing offered to Sam Masters in Heat Nine. That was sandwiched between two excellent 5–1 Pirate heat wins, both involving Newman — the first with Rushen, and then by making an excellent start to pull clear of former Pirate Anders Rowe and the promising Mitch McDiarmid, both of whom had out-gated Lawson. But the ‘Rocketman’ showed incredible speed to blast from last to second, and then surge past Newman.

POOLE 52 – Richard Lawson 15 (3,3,3,3,3), Lewis Kerr 10+1 (3,2,3,2’,0), Cooper Rushen 8+1 (2’,0,3,3), Zach Cook 8+1 (3,2,1,2’), William Cairns 6 (3,0,0,3), Kyle Newman 5+2 (FD,1,2’,2’), Fraser Bowes 0 (FD,0,0,FD)

OXFORD 37 – Sam Masters 10+1 (R,3,2,2’,1,2), Luke Killeen 8+1 (2,1,1,3,1’), Anders Rowe 6+1 (1’EH,3,1,1), Mitch McDiarmid 5 (2,1,0,2), Jason Edwards 4+2 (1’,2,1’,0), Dayle Wood 3+1 (F,2,0,1’), Darryl Ritchings 1 (1,F,TS,0)

Full Heat Details

Photo Credit:Tony Hartmann