NEIL Middleditch insisted that track covers were not the answer for Poole Pirates after the Elite League play-off clash with King’s Lynn was called off for a third time this evening.

The semi-final second leg is now scheduled to take place at Wimborne Road tomorrow night (7.30pm), although the weather forecast has once again put the meeting in doubt.

Pirates faced widespread calls to cover their circuit after rain – be it directly or indirectly – caused the postponement of three meetings with the Stars.

And although the start gate was covered prior to today’s call-off, Middleditch argued against giving the whole track the same treatment.

He told the Daily Echo: “Everybody says we should cover the track but they have to understand it’s not that simple.

“At Swindon the other night (against Coventry) they covered the track and it was still atrocious. OK, they raced, but I think Swindon would sooner have had the meeting off because that possibly cost them a place in the final.

“At both Swindon and Poole the dog track is higher than the speedway track and the water runs down to the speedway track, which is what causes some of the problems.

“Covers are ineffective to a point because the track has to be bone-dry before you put them on. If you put covers on a wet track, all they do is keep it wet.

“At Poole we’re governed a bit by the greyhounds in that we can’t have anything coming from the safety fence over the track, which would be the ideal scenario.

“There has got to be a way of doing it and you would have thought that perhaps someone like Sky would have looked into it given what these rain-offs are costing them.

“We need to work together on this as opposed to just blaming it on the promoters.”

Pirates will be without Vaclav Milik, Josh Grajczonek and Benji Compton tomorrow but Middleditch is not confident the meeting will even go ahead.

“The forecast is slightly better but it looks like it will go the same way,” he continued.

“The problem is that a lot of damage has been done to the track already and it’s a question of whether the track staff can get to it to do anything with it.

“The problem is there is no sun to dry it out. We’re in autumn now and it’s damp and cold, so things don’t dry.

“We have to hope for a break in the weather but at the moment it doesn’t look good.”