Comets take the victory in both matches at the Polo
Comets take the victory in both matches at the Polo
Division 1
A couple weeks after Poole’s victory at home against Horspath, the Comets made their final SSW league trip to South Wales to compete against the recently returning East Newport team, at the track known as the Polo for its size being the smallest track in the UK.
Spearheaded by Polish star Captain Greg Głuchowski, Poole lined up with a strong team that featured: Aaron Smith, Fez Langoo, Kenzie Bennett, Fraser Garnett, Josh Nottle and the reserves of Liam Bartlett and Stevie Nation, who stepped in for his brother Alan Nation who had to unfortunately pull out from the meeting due to personal commitments.
The meeting started off well balanced with East Newport managing the first couple of heats with 5-5 draw results to hold Poole from running away too early. However when Głuchowski and Nottle stepped up to take a 7-3 heat advantage, Poole really started to run away with the meeting grabbing heat advantages in all but the last race of the 1st half of the meeting into the break at 59-38 to Poole.
The last race of the 1st half and the 3 heats that followed saw East Newport pick up the pace managing a 6-4 result in their favour 4 races in the row which saw a comeback on the cards until the East Newport rider of James Bailey withdrew from the meeting seeing the young reserve rider of Tom Alexander and experienced veteran Neil Power go up against the fast pairing of Aaron Smith and Fez Langoo to which the Poole boys grabbed another 7-3 and once again the Poole side did not loose a heat for the rest of the meeting going on the win with East Newport finishing on 84 points and Poole claiming a second 100+ point in a row with 110 points for the Comets
Division 2/Development League
After the Division 1 match it was the turn of the Division2/Development league riders with 3 boys doubling up for the match, Liam Bartlett, Josh Nottle and Stevie Nation. The new format saw the 2 vetern boys of Stevie and Division 1 stand in manager Bob Hayward pair up, Liam and Josh as a 2nd pair and the final pairing consisted of 2 of Poole’s best young riders with Oscar Bartlett and Izaac Laing, both boys who had raced at the Polo the day before and claimed 1st and 2nd in the Under 8 category showing their future potential at such a young age.
The meeting kicked off the the vets pairing starting off strong with Bob and Stevie claiming a 7-3 against the Welsh pairing of Rob Absalom and Matthew Coslett and then Josh and Liam taking a 7-3 defeat against Morgan Porter and Under 16 Girls World No.3 Poole rider on loan to East Newport Nataleigh Goulden. Which was then followed up with Oscar and Izaac claiming another 7-3 to Poole.
The majority of the meeting progressed smoothly until the first race of the 2nd half with Stevie taking a nasty tumble after being forced off his bike by Rob Absalom with Stevie unfortunately taking the exclusion as he commited an offence during the race prior to the incident and being allowed to continue. He then got back up for his next race in 2 heats time to then claim a 7-3 with Bob over the East Newport pairing.
The end of the match saw Bob and Stevie take a close win in their races against Absalom and Coslett 32-27, Liam and Josh unfortunately loosing out the Porter and Goulden in another close match 27-32. Oscar and Izaac took a commanding win in their 6 heats to beat the East Newport youngsters 39-20 only dropping 3 points in total. Giving an overall match score of East Newport 79 and Poole 98.
A fantastic days racing all round in both match in some super hot weather. Many thanks to East Newport for the event.
Brilliant photos compliments of Nick Davies
Match report by Ferose Langoo
