Pirates: Davidsson spurred on by fear factor (From Bournemouth Echo)

Pirates: Davidsson spurred on by fear factor

11:29pm Wednesday 8th July 2009 in

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DANIEL Davidsson admitted the fear of relegation had been in the back of his mind.

But he believes Pirates’ big win over Witches in tonight’s Daily Echo-sponsored meeting will signal a revival of fortunes for the struggling Dorset club and enable them to avoid the drop.

The Swede powered to an electric 11 paid 12 point performance and would have got more if he hadn’t fallen on his own on the third bend while second behind Bjarne Pedersen in heat three.

With the Dane, who charged to a brilliant 16 paid 18 point maximum, and Chris Holder (16+1) also hitting double figures, Poole Castle Cover were never in trouble against woeful Ipswich.

Although Joe Screen struggled with mechanical problems, Pirates new boy Steve Boxall smacked in an impressive seven from reserve on his comeback.

Witches turned up without new number one Scott Nicholls, and with no facility for a guest granted because he was riding in a Swedish League meeting, their number eight, Jerran Hart, the Buccaneers’ teenager, came in.

Even without injured Hans Andersen, who is nursing a hand injury following a heavy fall in Sweden, Poole were on fire.

They romped to their biggest win of the season, grabbed their first maximum three-pointer at home and leapt above Ipswich off the foot of the table.

Only Polish duo Robert Miskowiak and Dawid Stachyra, on his first visit to Wimborne Road, put up any real resistance.

So based on this performance, Pirates shouldn’t really have anything to worry about when it comes to being sucked into a promotion-relegation battle between the Elite League’s bottom side and the Premier League champions.

Asked if the R word – relegation – had cropped up in the Poole changing room, Davidsson said: “Not really yet.

“We haven’t been thinking about it, although it’s probably always been in the back of the mind.

“But we’ve got quite a few meetings left and we want to finish on a high so that we leave that promotion-relegation play-off to other teams.

“You never know, and we don’t know how long Hans is going to be out, but we should be strong enough not to finish bottom.

“To be honest, I can’t see it happening. We are just too strong for that and we have a lot of home meetings that we have to make the most of and win.

“I haven’t really looked at the league, but our aim now is to try and climb the table and finish as high as we can.”

Talking about his heat three spill, after he’d joined Pedersen on a 5-1, Davidsson said: “I made a decent start off four and got around Danny King and Miskowiak.

“But I couldn’t quite catch up with Bjarne, who was on the inside, and when he tried to switch to the outside I didn’t realise until I looked up and it caught me out. He was trying to team-ride but unfortunately I slid off because there was no grip out there to keep me up at that stage.

“If it had been later in the meeting I might have been able to get away with it.”

HEAT DETAILS

Pirates 59: 1 Rider replacement for Hans Andersen, 2 Joe Screen (2*-2*-ret-0-1*) 5+3, 3 Daniel Davidsson (fell-2*-3-3-3) 11+1, 4 Bjarne Pedersen (3-3-3-2*-3-2*) 16+2, 5 Chris Holder (2*-3-3-3-2-3) 16+1, 6 Ben Wilson (1*-1-1-1) 4+1, 7 Steve Boxall (2-3-2-0) 7. Team manager: Neil Middleditch.

Ipswich 33: 1 Jerran Hart (0-0-0) 0, 2 Tobias Kroner (1-1-1-0) 3, 3 Robert Miskowiak (2-4^-1*-2-1) 10+1, 4 Danny King (1*-0-2-2) 5+1, 5 Troy Batchelor (1-1-0^-3) 5, 6 Dawid Stachyra (3-0-3-1-2-1*-0) 10+1, 7 Carl Wilkinson (0-0-0) 0. Team manager: Peter Simmons.

Referee: Mick Posselwhite.

Ht 1: Pedersen, Screen, Kroner, Hart, 61.47 (5-1).

Ht 2: Stachyra, Boxall, Wilson, Wilkinson, 60.34 (8-4).

Ht 3: Pedersen, Miskowiak, King, Davidsson (fell), 61.17 (11-7).

Ht 4: Boxall, Holder, Batchelor, Stachyra, 60.32 (16-8).

Ht 5: Pedersen, Davidsson, Kroner, Hart, 60.94 (21-9).

Ht 6: Holder, Screen, Batchelor, Wilkinson, 61.01 (26-10).

Ht 7: Holder, Miskowiak^ (tactical rider, double points), Wilson, King, 59.95 (30-14).

Ht 8: (re-run) Stachyra, Boxall, Kroner (tapes offence, re-started off 15 metres handicap), Screen (retired), 60.52 (32-18).

Ht 9: Davidsson, Pedersen, Stachyra, Batchelor^ (tactical rider, double points), 60.78 (37-19).

Ht 10: Davidsson, King, Miskowiak, Screen, 60.36 (40-22).

Ht 11: Holder, Stachyra, Wilson, Kroner, 60.43 (44-24).

Ht 12: Davidsson, Miskowiak, Stachyra, Boxall, 60.37 (47-27).

Ht 13: Batchelor, Holder, Screen, Hart, 60.67 (50-30).

Ht 14: Pedersen, King, Wilson, Wilkinson, 60.59 (54-32).

Ht 15: Holder, Pedersen, Miskowiak, Stachyra, 60.39 (59-33).

Fixtures, tomorrow night, Elite League: Ipswich v Wolves, Swindon v Lakeside.