Poole, championship winners in 2021, will be the toughest test so far of Edinburgh Monarchs’ play-off credentials and Pirates know how to get round Armadale having won in the SGB Championship and the Knockout Cup Final last season.

Monarchs have suffered two home defeats but showed excellent form in despatching play-off rivals Scunthorpe Scorpions last Friday. Poole will be at a different level with heat leaders Danny King, ex-Monarchs star Steve Worrall and Richard Lawson, a former Glasgow Tigers rider, backed by other talented riders.

Both teams will be at full-strength and Monarchs’ team manager, Alex Harkess, admitted: “Poole are still a solid team in spite of a couple of poor recent results.

“You don’t want to allow them to get their tails up. We need to do what we did against Scunthorpe and get points on the board early, and get race winners so that they don’t believe they are going to walk all over us.

“Last season when they came and won, they were winning races virtually all the way through (the meeting), so we need to be getting these race wins as we should be doing at home.”

Friday’s match will be streamed on the British Speedway Network to which there is a link on the Monarchs’ website. Gold Members and Subscribers may still access the Monarchs’ own stream.

What The Fork MONARCHS: Sam Masters (capt), Lasse Fredriksen, Kye Thomson, Paco Castagna, Josh Pickering, Jacob Hook, James Sarjeant.

PIRATES: Steve Worrall, Drew Kemp, Danny King (capt), Zach Cook, Richard Lawson, Ben Cook, Nathan Ablitt.

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