DANNY Ford admits lots of work has had to be done to the Wimborne Road track, after the club went to “extreme measures” over the weekend.

Due to rain on Saturday afternoon, Pirates’ track staff went into overdrive to ensure the second leg of their Knockout Cup final against Scunthorpe Scorpions could go ahead.

Poole were then due to host Leicester Lions in the long-awaited Jubilee League final on Wednesday, but the meeting was postponed due to a waterlogged track and rearranged for Friday (7.30pm).

“It was such a shame, because the actual weather yesterday was great,” Ford told the Daily Echo.

“But the track had taken so much damage from the night before. It was literally torrential rain, and on the morning as well. So it was waterlogged.

“It’s the end of season. We don’t want any riders going out and getting hurt, just because of an unfit track.

“It was definitely the right decision. I went down there myself early and the track guys weren’t confident it was going to be able to be turned around, so we made the decision.

“We don’t want to waste anyone’s time, so we made the call to postpone it and move it to Friday.”

Reflecting on the work that went in to getting Saturday’s meeting against Scunthorpe on, Ford said: “The whole week we were prepping things, trying to get as much done as we could.

“We knew that rain was coming, but we were confident we could manage it.

“It came just at the wrong time on the day, to be honest. There was a late one around 2pm on the race day, which kind of set us back quite a bit.

“In truth, we had to go to extreme measures to get the meeting on, effectively having to ruin the track to get the meeting on, which was a last-case scenario.

“Because it was towards the end of the season, I thought it being best. We certainly wouldn’t do that mid-season.

“Which has now caused a few more problems and was a little bit of the factor why we weren’t able to run yesterday as well, because the rain coupled with the damage that had to be done to get the previous meeting on was just a recipe for disaster.

“But we’ve got it back to a good, fit state now. The guys were down there yesterday, in good conditions. So hopefully the sun stays out today and gives the track enough time to dry out.”

Asked if he sees Friday as the last chance to get the meeting on, Ford said: “We certainly won’t be pushing into November.

“Obviously we have still got the weekend, but it does get increasingly difficult to staff everything. We’ll just see how things are progressing for tomorrow.

“We’re confident we can get it done. And if we do get a bit of rain, obviously the forecasts are looking a little bit iffy, but we’re confident we can get it on.”

Pirates: Richard Lawson, rider replacement, Ben Cook, Zach Cook, Steve Worrall (c), Kyle Newman, Joe Thompson.