SWINDON chief Gary Patchett claimed his club had been given no say in the decision to reschedule the Elite League grand final for tomorrow night.

Patchett’s comments came after Pirates had announced an early postponement to last night’s scheduled second leg after forecasts correctly predicted heavy rain would hit Poole.

The eagerly-anticipated showdown – which will see Pirates attempting to overcome a seven-point deficit – will now take place tomorrow (7.30pm).

Patchett said Swindon would have preferred a re-staging on Monday – although Pirates already have a Knockout Cup fixture that night.

He told the Swindon Advertiser: “I was surprised to hear that it was announced we were going to ride on Friday night when we had not even been asked or consulted on it all.

“We would have preferred to have ridden on Monday night and that was our understanding going into the week, that if Wednesday was called off we would ride on Monday.

“But the meeting has been announced and people know that now and, fortunately enough, all of our riders are available and we will be there.

“I am not sure what the reasoning was behind it but we are fast running out of available days now and need to get the meeting on.”

Ford confirmed the Wimborne Road track had been in good condition under covers but that the decision was made after weather forecasts had predicted “100 per cent rain”.

Ford added: “There was more of a chance of running the fixture on Friday with the forecast as it is so the decision was made to try to run it then.

“An awful lot of money is wasted by the production team at BSkyB when they broadcast these (postponed) events, so a decision was made to try to alleviate the costs for everybody and to try to keep the fans on-side, rather than them making what would seemingly have been a wasted journey.”