A disappointing display in front of their own fans saw the Poole Castle Cover Pirates slump to a 40 – 50 defeat at the hands of a much sharper Ipswich side. This defeat also brought to an end the Pirates nine match unbeaten home record.

The Witches cast their spell on the match from the opening race when they leapt into a four point lead, leaving Poole with the job of playing catch – up from there on in.

Poole were handicapped still further when Chris Holder was forced to pull out of the match after aggravating the back injury he sustained while racing in Poland at the weekend. To make matters worse he young Australian had picked up 5 hard earned points from his first two rides before being forced to withdraw from the match.

“ We were up against it right from the first race “ said Poole team manager Neil Middleditch “ Ipswich were quicker than us from the starts and made us pay for our mistakes, it’s as easy as that. Losing Holder was a big blow and upset the balance of the side but in the end we can’t complain as we were beaten by a much better team.”

Pirates managed to get back into the match when Freddie Eriksson battled past Kroner at the end of Heat 10 to follow team mate Kasprzak across the line and level the match score. But even then the Pirates couldn’t snatch the advantage away from the visitors who wrapped up the result in the penultimate race of the night.

Dave Watt with a 12 point return was the only Pirate to look capable of breaking Ipswich’s hold on the match, and Poole will have to hope that they cannot ride as bad when they meet the top of the table Swindon Robins at the Wiltshire sides track tonight ( Thursday 22 May ).