POOLE boss Danny Ford admits that his side “imploded” at the end of the season.
The Wessex Marine Pirates surprisingly missed out on the Championship league title and KO Cup to Glasgow and Scunthorpe.
It was the first major trophies that Ford had lost since taking over the reins at the club from his dad Matt in 2020.
Ford told the Daily Echo: “I think we just imploded a little bit at the end of the season, to be honest.
“I think the loss of Anders Rowe really did hurt us. We simply couldn’t cover for that.
“I honestly do believe that if we were at full strength, one-to-seven, I think we’d have been difficult to beat in both finals.
“He did his first couple of heats (against Scunthorpe), but had to withdraw after taking another tumble in the first couple of stagings of heat one.
“Being honest with himself, I don’t think he was fully fit, which wasn’t an ideal situation. We really did need him and if not, running the rider replacement would’ve helped us more than him doing a couple of rides.
“But he gave it his all and it was a shame. It’s such a shame for the season to end the way it did.”
Ford has won back-to-back doubles with the Pirates since the club left the top flight for the Championship after the pandemic.
He added: “Since my tenure coming into the club, I haven’t really tasted much defeat.
“Having it twice within a month, it is certainly not a taste I want to get too familiar with.
“It does hurt. We’re a club used to success. Our supporters are used to success and when we don’t reach the height of our expectations, it does hurt, maybe more so than it would for other clubs. It has hurt us, definitely.
“We were going along incredibly smoothly, until October. We qualified for every final, we won the BSN Series final, we finished top of the league.
“It just would’ve been nice had the season finished at the end of September, to be honest!”
He added: “I don’t think there were any decisions we could’ve made that would’ve changed things, which comforts me slightly.
“We had the best team up until the end of September. We finished top of the league, we were probably everyone’s favourites, on paper, to do the clean sweep.
“But genuinely, the loss of Anders, we just simply could not cover for it.
“Losing him in the position he was riding meant we could only run rider replacement, we couldn’t even get in a guest. It’s just one of those things.
“It’s the way it is in speedway, unfortunately. Injuries have kind of killed our season a little bit.
“But we’ve been so fortunate in the past couple of years with injuries not hurting us too badly and other clubs have suffered.
“It was our turn to suffer and have a little bit of luck go against us, but hopefully next year we can bounce back.”
Words by Holeshot Media.
Images by Taylor Lanning.